


Puzzlebox

by fadeverb



Series: Leo [14]
Category: In Nomine
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-02
Updated: 2013-08-03
Packaged: 2017-12-22 04:06:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 42,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/908695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fadeverb/pseuds/fadeverb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One mysterious artifact. One mysterious message. That's more mysterious in one place than Leo ever wants.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In Which Somebody Loses a Limb

It's amazing how much blood fits inside a vessel. You wouldn't think to look at an average-size human-shaped being that they could hold that much, but once someone loses a limb it all comes out. Eventually.

"I am never getting these pants clean again." I shift my weight on my knees, and realize my feet are damp. "Or these shoes. Never."

"You go through clothes so fast, what's the difference?" Zhune leans against a wall, leaving a big red splotch on what was already a red-spattered stretch of paint. "Are you going to take all night to open that?"

Blasting the safe door open with my resonance would be easy and fast. Since we were told to do this in a sneaky and subtle way, I've been spending the last minute working ever so carefully through the mechanisms inside, a quarter resonance and two thirds honest safecracking to get the damn thing open. It's finicky work that requires a lot of concentration to not screw up, and even without a time limit, that's enough to annoy me. "Almost there. Though I note that 'subtle' is a lost cause."

"Tragic case of a robbery gone wrong," Zhune says. This job is more feel and focus than sight, so I can watch him shove the corpse with his foot while I keep working. "It happens. There wasn't any disturbance."

"You ripped his _arm_ off, Zhune. I think that might draw attention." My fingers ache. There's nothing I'd like more right now than to blast the safe to pieces. If this were an ordinary job, I might do it and deal with the consequences, but this one's from someone powerful enough that I'm sticking to the letter of the damn assignment.

"Steroids and drugs," Zhune says. His eyes are half-closed now, picture of a Djinn at rest. He's too covered in blood to do the James Bond thing, and so he's back to the default pose of Stalker. Watching me do my work without lifting a finger to help. "They'll come up with something. Unless you have a suggestion for how to cover this up?"

"Nothing that wouldn't cause more disturbance." If I still had Katherine, I would hand her a disposable lighter and enough kerosene to get things going. But we're short on humans, and we don't have so much time that Zhune can dig one up for us. "You couldn't have killed him in a mundane manner? He went down so fast, he can't have been tough."

"You weren't complaining when I pulled him off you," Zhune says, and now he sounds a little testy. Because I'm right. The man--angel, probably, though knowing our Prince, it could as easily be a demon--had a gun to my head, resonating it would have swapped us out of plausible deniability about mundanity, and of course Zhune had to take him out. But he could have broken the man's neck, not ripped an arm off. I don't know if he was showing off, having fun, or what, but it's a little inconvenient. Zhune's sweet as sunshine when I come up with a clever plan, but a lot less gracious when I point out flaws in his.

The door to the safe swings open, saving me from further griping. They end with me drunk on my back in some motel room, too sloshed to debate coherently and too numb to care. I suppose that's one way for Zhune to win arguments. "The point," I say, as I riffle through the contents, "is that much as I run through clothes, there is no way either of us can do inconspicuous while soaked in blood. Your shirt is still _dripping_ , partner."

"Is it in there?"

Which means he's not bothering to try this argument with me either. I stand up, and toss him the box. It's a pretty wooden cube, all inlaid wood and no obvious opening mechanism. It's also now bloody. "Dogs."

"What?"

"Dogs." I crouch down and pull out anything that looks valuable in the safe, to make it look more like a robbery. I'll get the man's wallet and watch on the way out. It's traditional. "We have six hours before sunrise. Probably seven, eight on the outside before enough people get into work that someone walks by this room and smells this. So in that time period we find a few vicious dogs--one would do--and toss them in the room with the body. Add a few decorative stab wounds, before the stiff cools much further. This turns into a robbery where some psycho had a killer dog and a knife. Sensational, but not implausible. People have been reading about innocent schmucks being torn apart by dogs in the papers for years. Not perfect, but it's the best I can come up with on short notice."

"Dogs. Huh." Zhune thinks it over, or gives the impression of thinking it over so that I won't believe he's accepting my solution right off. We've been prickly on this topic since that mess with the War and a weapons deal. His plan was based on better information than mine, but it still fell through. "It'll have to do." As if he's offering any better suggestions. "I think I know where to get a dog."

"Great. Then pick one up. I'm heading back to the motel to take a shower." And to do some damage to the case of beer we stashed there.

"No drinking."

"What?"

"I need you sober," Zhune repeats patiently. I'm going to punch him if he keeps talking to me in that condescending voice. It won't hurt him much, but it would make a point. "For the drop-off."

"Fuck that. You can drop it off yourself." I'm tired of meeting crazy Servitors of Theft. There are probably sane ones out there, but we never get to meet them, no. Only the whacked-out ones with strange obsessions or creepy habits. "I want a shower before I'm dealing with anyone."

"Then get a shower, and I'll pick you up." Zhune steps away from the wall to look me straight in the eye. "We're partners in this. So we deliver the goods together, and you will be sober. You can be as much of a brat as you want during the meeting, because people expect that of you anyway. But you don't get to look sloppy."

That stings, unexpectedly. I know that I'm not the most polite person when it comes to dealing with Servitors of Theft. I didn't think I'd met enough of them that it counted as a reputation. And as for sloppy... He has a point. I can get drunk on my own time. So long as I'm on the job, I stay focused.

"Fine," I say. Maybe he'll stop being such a pain if I let him win the argument. "Pick me up from the motel when you're done with the dog. And find me some new shoes. I only have a spare change of clothes."

"Will do." Zhune ruffles my hair, leaving it all the bloodier, and grins. "Don't use up all the hot water. I'll need a shower too."

I'm not sure if I like him better when he's being grumpy and authoritative or when he's being chummy. Djinn aren't supposed to be chummy. I'm never quite sure how much of it is an act, part of the movie script in his head that says he's supposed to seduce the female lead and cut a dashing figure in casinos. "Whatever," I say, which is a weak response. "Don't take forever."


	2. In Which Exactly The Wrong Sort Of Celestial Attempts To Be Mysterious

I have to give Zhune this much credit: he may be a bastard at times, but he's good with the partner shtick. By the time we head out to deliver the box, I'm wearing new clothes and good pair of boots, all of it fresh enough that I haven't worn holes in anything. Because of who picked it out--not me--this vessel even looks good in it. Zhune looks downright snappy. He always looks snappy. He can lounge beside a pool in a bathing suit and make it look snappy: I've seen him do it. Together, I'm told we make a cute couple. If that's not unsettling I don't know what is.

Our contact is a Shedite of Theft, and apparently someone Zhune knows from way back when. He seems to know everyone in Theft from way back when, and anyone he doesn't know isn't worth knowing. This Shedite, however, is a Wordbound, though I don't know what Word. I only know that when it talks Zhune quiets down and pays attention. I can take a hint, so I do the same.

Tonight the Corruptor is meeting us in a Denny's, and wearing the body of a preppy young woman wearing preppy starched clothes and a preppy bright smile. She smiles when we sit down across from her at the table, between bites of pancakes. Maybe she's corrupting this preppy girl into cheating on her diet. The world may never know.

"Any trouble?" she asks. It's not quite polite small-talk. We were sent to do two things: retrieve an item, and kill a celestial. If we botched either, she'll want to know before it causes her problems.

"Nothing major," says Zhune. "A little resistance." He slides the box across the table to the center, right by the cardboard standup describing the dessert specials. "Messy, but mundane enough to pass inspection."

"Uh-huh," says the Shedite, and takes another bite of pancake. "I guess we'll have to see how that shakes out." Her gaze slides across me, sizing me up against whatever criteria she has for a Calabite of Theft. "No problems on your end?"

So I can't just sit this one out in silence. "Not really," I say. I wasn't the one ripping limbs off. "Safes aren't difficult, only time-consuming."

"Uh-huh. That's nice." She picks up the box, runs pink fingernails along the edges of it. "So, Leo--the name's Leo, right? I hear you're supposed to be the clever one."

"I'm not the one with all the experience." I don't know where she's going with the conversation, and I don't like it. We all pause for long enough to look ordinary and cheerful when the waiter shows up. The Shedite has a coffee refill, Zhune orders a steak, I ask for water. Among demons, eating is social, pleasure, or Role-maintenance. I don't have a Role, I don't feel like being social, and I'm not in the mood to eat anything. This isn't my idea of a place to eat. No place that can't serve alcohol could be good.

"Uh-huh. I know." She holds out the puzzle box, and leaves it waiting there until I take it from her. "I have something with your name on it, Leo. If you can open up that tricky little box for me, I'll give it to you."

With my luck, what she has for me is bad advice. But it's something to do rather than eating, so I turn the box around in my hands and start looking for the catch.

I haven't worked it out by the time Zhune's steak arrives. Or by the time the Shedite's dessert shows up, though I have figured out a set of five pieces I can move, some only by moving others first. I'd be tempted to use my resonance to cheat, but this is interesting: someone's put a lot of work into constructing the puzzle, down to decoy pieces that move around or let others move around but have nothing to do with opening the box.

It does occur to me, as Zhune polishes off the last bite of steak, that this could be some sort of trick question. See if I decide to cut the Gordian knot, rather than trying to untangle it. But I'm not the warrior type, nor am I big into swords. I'd rather see if there is a way to open the box without breaking it.

The last piece is the trickiest one, as it involves a piece I'd previously disregarded as a decoy, and three sequences of moving pieces back into place and then out again in a different order. But when the last piece goes, the whole box falls apart in my hands, a bunch of little sticks and wooden blocks. It might take me an hour to put it together again, even remembering how I took it apart the first time. In the center's nothing but a tight-rolled wedge of parchment.

"Clever," says the Shedite, in a voice that might be approving or only smug. I can't tell. She gathers up the pieces and the parchment without unrolling it. "Here I was thinking Zhune only kept you around because you're cute."

"She can't be both?" Zhune pushes his plate away, leans back with his cup of coffee. Intricate little puzzle boxes aren't the sort of thing to interest him. "The occasional failure aside, I choose my partners well."

"Uh-huh." The Shedite smiles, preppy toothy smile. "You choose your partners on the basis of how much you can fuck with their heads. Competence is secondary. But you got lucky." She dips a hand into her blouse pocket, and comes out with a white envelope, the size that party invitations or thank you notes come in. Someone has printed on the outside, in precise handwriting and blue ink:

Leo  
Calabite of Theft  
North America

Sure, there's nothing secrecy-breaking about _that_. They couldn't have come up with a more discreet addressing method? I take the offered envelope; it's heavier than a card should be, and unbalanced.

"I got it from someone," says the Shedite, with a one-shouldered shrug and a little heave of her chest. She's going through the motions of being sexy without any warmth behind it. Chest thrust, lowered eyelashes, cute smiles. I think the waiter left his phone number on the bill. "Who got it from someone, who got it I don't know where. It's an interesting way of delivering a message. Hand it off to a Servitor of Theft. Wait for it to arrive. Don't you think?"

I rip the envelope open, dissolve it into paper fragments that don't say anything incriminating. That sounds like the way Zhune gets messages to our Prince, when he's in Hell. Except there, the incentive is not to be found guilty of holding onto a message the Prince wanted; I have no idea how long this thing has been bumping through Theft, working its way towards a low-importance demon like me. It's probably been opened and resealed a half dozen times.

There are three things inside the envelope. One is a piece of a receipt, detailing the purchase of kiddy activity pack, a pack of cigarettes, and a lighter from a gas station rest stop. The information about the rest stop in question has been torn off, but I know where I last made a purchase like that. The second is a plain white card, and written on it in the same handwriting and ink, a phone number. No area code. The third is a shiny penny, stamped with a date from two years back.

"Oh, fucking hell," I say.

"So you get the message?" asks the Shedite. No doubt she's seen it herself. No doubt she's suffering that Magpie curiosity that sends us off to find out what's inside, what does it mean, who wants it?

I tuck all three away inside a pocket. "No idea," I say. I know I'm lying, she knows I'm lying, Zhune knows I'm lying, and I have no intention of explaining. "Maybe Dark Humor's being more subtle than usual."

"Uh-huh," says the Shedite. She spends another ten minutes talking good old days with Zhune before she gives up on waiting for me to explain and heads out. She could ask directly, but where would be the fun in that? Maybe she'll investigate my background to figure out what's up. Maybe she'll even find out.

Zhune only stays quiet until we're back in the car of the week. This one has no air conditioning, two non-functional doors, a window stuck forever halfway down. The owner probably prefers the insurance money to getting it back. "You're being stalked by a Seraph?"

"It's not stalking."

"If anyone would know stalking, I would. He's being subtle about it, that's all."

"It could be anyone."

Zhune snorts. It's a very Djinn sound. "But it's not. Anyone might be able to pick up on the name, and send the card. But the receipt? You recognized that from something you did with the snake."

The way he puts it, you'd think I was checking into motels to jump Penny's admittedly elegant vessel. I'm sure angels aren't allowed to have sex with demons, even if the Seraph had been interested, and I don't think he ever was. And I only appreciated him on the general aesthetic level I appreciate anyone Balseraph-like. It's early imprinting and admiration for the form, nothing more. "So he decided to send me a message. So what? It could be a trap. I'm not doing anything with it."

"You should."

"Risk junkie. What good reason do I have for getting near an angel?"

Zhune slides a hand along the inside of my thigh. It's a distraction while I'm driving, and another of his reminders that he can shove me around if he feels like it. "Redemption bait. Because he's so concerned with getting in touch with you, and you want to know why. Because an angel who sets out to meet with a vulnerable little demon is vulnerable himself in thinking you are." He leans in closer, drops his voice so that I have to pay attention to hear him. Totally manipulative, and it works every time. "Because he wants to mess with your head, so it's only fair that I get a chance to mess with his."

I keep my voice level. "If I didn't know better, I'd believe you were jealous."

"Would you like that?" He asks it like it's an honest question. Bastard.

"What I'd like--" I cut off a car to merge onto the freeway, accelerator all the way down and if I'm not careful I'll manage to hit someone despite the near lack of traffic at this time of morning, because when I'm pissed off I drive faster than I should. "--is for you to stop trying to get me into more trouble. I am _trying_ to do this whole Theft thing as well as I can, so that I don't have to worry about our Prince deciding I'm not worth the hassle after all and disassembling me to make you a new pet."

"Partner," Zhune corrects. It's a sore point with him. It's a sore point with me, too, and for a completely different reason.

"Either way, it does not help my case if I run off to meet with angels. Ones I did some work with when I was still Renegade. How am I supposed to explain that to Valefor if he asks? 'Oh, sure, I went off and had dinner with a Seraph of Trade, but it wasn't _business_. I just wanted to chat about the good old days when I wasn't working for you.' Is this going to sound good?"

"Which is why I'm coming with you," says Zhune. "Your shiny little Penny can try to talk you into swapping sides, and I can discover what makes him tick."

"He's a Seraph of Trade. He finds honorable contracts a turn-on, thinks humans shouldn't be killed without a good reason, and scowls when people lie. There's nothing more to know." I'm doing somewhere over 90 right now; this car is so old the speedometer pegged. "I'm not meeting up with him just because you want to fuck with the snake."

"If you could pull him in," Zhune says, talking into my ear now, "our Prince would appreciate _that_ quite a bit."

"It's not going to happen."

"Not necessarily a Fall. Promises he has to keep. Compromising situations. You're telling me you won't try? What sort of commitment is that?"

"It wouldn't work."

"How do you know? You haven't tried."

There's no winning this argument. I can be logical or angry or dismissive, but there is no way I'm winning this argument. Zhune has a case of beer and a clean motel bed on his side, while all I have is common sense. "This is such an amazingly bad idea."

"Don't worry," says Zhune. He kisses me on the neck, no matter that I'm trying to not collide with a semi, here. "I won't let anything happen to you."

"Can we talk about this later?"

"In the morning," he says, which doesn't mean much when it's two hours to dawn.

I think I do like Zhune better when he's grumpy. There's nothing quite so creepy as a Djinn who wants to hold me close and keep me safe. I could use a little more apathy in this relationship.


	3. In Which I Do Not Win

The Djinn's good for his word. Shortly after ten in the morning, Zhune stands in front of the motel television set while I'm trying to watch some mindless Media filler. Technically, at the moment that he gets in my way, I was trying to watch a commercial, but it's the principle of things. "Phone call," he says, brandishing his cell phone. That one still works, unlike mine.

"I'm busy."

"Watching television?"

"When Nybbas reveals that he took over Hell a decade back and no one noticed because we were all busy watching sweeps, I'll be set."

Zhune gives me an exceedingly Djinn stare, and turns off the television. As I have control of the remote, I turn it right back on. There's hours left of my holding this thing until it stops working. He turns the television off again. "You're being difficult, Leo."

"It's one of the things I do best." I zap it back on. "Has it occurred to you that if I call this Seraph, more people on the other side will figure out that I'm not in the old vessel? It would be nice to keep some sort of anonymity."

"With Judgment and War informed of your current vessel? It's a lost cause." Television off.

"Just because they know doesn't mean I have to spread the information through Heaven." Television on.

"There's bound to be security camera footage of you from one of the Heavenly Tethers we've hit. Revealing your current vessel is irrelevant." Television off.

"This argument is irrelevant. There's no reason for me to follow through on the contact." Television on. It's back to the program, though I can't remember what it's supposed to be about. Some woman is creeping around in the bushes to spy on a perky teenage boy with straight white teeth. I can't make out much of it around the Djinn standing in the way. Stalkers don't go for petite vessels. I don't either, but that didn't stop me from getting one. Life is never fair.

"Where's your sense of adventure?"

"Buried far beneath my sense of self-preservation."

Zhune gets out of my view for the three steps it takes him to reach the bed. Yanks me up before I can protest, and tosses me over his shoulder. "Leo? Don't be such a pussy. Call the Seraph."

"Put me down." I say this in a calm and level voice because being toted around like this is embarrassing enough without going squeaky. "Dammit, Zhune, you wouldn't do this if I were in my old vessel."

"I don't know," he says, and carries me right into the bathroom. Bad sign. "If you were in your old vessel, would you whine this much?" And before I can answer that one--it's a trick question, which I have to admire--he drops me into the shower and turns on the cold water.

I think I had a shred of dignity, once. Back when I was an unimportant drone working on a low-priority Fire project, instead of...whatever it is that I am now. I'd like my old job back, and the kind of life where I didn't worry about suddenly having a conversation with my Prince about what I'd been up. "You are such am asshole."

Zhune offers me a hand up. There's no point in not accepting the offer; getting up on my own won't mend my pride. I can take satisfaction in getting him wet in the process. "Trust me on this one. Just call and set up the meeting."

"After I dry off." The bathroom's small, and his vessel is large; I can't maneuver around without sliding past him. This gets me an arm around my neck while I'm trying to get to a towel. If I didn't know better, I'd swear he swapped over to Theft from Lust, not the Game. "What's your problem?"

"You're sulking," Zhune says, in that patient voice that makes me want to punch someone. Possibly him. "Work's been routine for months. You're bored, because nothing's challenging you. When you get bored, you get whiny. I'd say that someone needs to smack it out of you, except whenever anyone tries, you enact bloody revenge and then go back to being bored." He slides my dripping wet shirt off, while I'm trapped between him and the bathroom wall. One hand running down my back, and I lean my forehead against cool tiles, watch them crack in front of me. A little destruction is what I need right now.

"So you're saying I should go deal with angels to, what, break the routine? Give me something else to worry about?"

"To keep you from getting bored." He unbuttons my jeans, starts working those down my legs while his chin rests on my shoulder. I could go on about the power dynamics of this, I could write a damn paper on just how much is wrong here, status and sex and clothing and power dynamics, but what's the point? We're demons. Wrong is inevitable in the relationship. What's pathetic is that this is the healthiest long-term relationship I've ever had. Neither of us has tried to kill the other one yet, which is saying something.

"I'm not bored." I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, out of the corner of my eye. I know what I'd think about a human I saw looking like me right now. I'd think, she's about to get screwed over. Sucks to be her.

"It's not a problem," Zhune tells me. "We live a long time, so we all need something to keep the job interesting." He's pushed my jeans down until they're bunched up at my ankles, right where I can't even take a step now without untangling myself from him to pull them back up. This would be easier if I were drunk. I don't like getting trapped, not metaphorically and not literally, so Zhune loves shoving me into corners where I can't move. At least he backed off on the topic of handcuffs after a pointed discussion. There wasn't much of that hotel room left afterward.

What Zhune means is that we all have coping methods for how screwed up our lives are. Regan could Balseraph herself into believing whatever kept her happy, Zhune likes his mind games, and I channel my frustration into revenge when I get the chance. "I could reach interesting without the Host being involved. If I put my mind to it."

My partner, bastard that he is, steps back just long enough to spin me around, my back in a literal corner while he blocks the way out. I get to stand around naked and trapped while he hasn't even taken off his jacket. "But this way, I get entertainment too. It's more efficient." He shoves a knee between my legs, and kisses me right when I'm trying to answer. It's a cheap way to win an argument, and not one I'm about to let him get away with.

Pointed shoving doesn't get him out of my face, but it does convince him to relocate his attention to my left cheekbone for a minute. Teeth and tongue moving along that line distract me, but I have a lot of practice with speaking through distractions at this point. "So you're not worried that I might decide to run off with someone who doesn't toss me into the shower to make his arguments?"

"Not at all." Zhune backs off just far enough to pull his jacket off. We'll have to untangle a mass of wet clothing from the bathroom floor before we check out. Again. "He wants to rewrite your brain and tear a few Forces off so that you'll conform, and you're no good at conformity."

"That's not true. I was a total conformist when I worked for Fire." I take the opportunity to get my pants off my ankles. Even if I have no dignity left, I don't want to fall on my face because my feet are tied together.

"Oh, and that worked out so well." He strips off his shirt. It's unfair that he looks elegantly tousled when wearing wrinkled clothing, and I look grungy.

"I blame Regan."

He steps back in too close, hands down my chest. Like he owns the place. "You got kicked out of Fire for not fitting in, ran screaming from the War because you didn't _want_ to fit in... Face it, Leo. You're just not good with conformity."

I bite his shoulder hard enough to draw blood, because I'm annoyed and because I can. Because he can only go so far before his attunement makes him stop, and there's nothing stopping me but him. I've never figured out if he considers that a problem or a turn-on. He pries me off without comment, and I'm not up to fighting it right now. "Remind me what this has to do with meeting angels?"

"That I'm not in any danger of you running away with them. You dislike authority, and you know it's just mean a new set of rules." His hands slide down to rest lightly on my hips. It won't last. "You may be a whiny brat at times, but you're no idiot."

"Is that supposed to be a compliment?" I make a half-hearted attempt at sliding away from him, and find those hands are every bit as secure as I suspected. "I'm not drunk enough for this."

"For the sex, or for meeting your ex?"

"Either. And he's not my ex."

"You keep saying that."

"Maybe because it's still true." The tile's cracking under my hands. It's going to look like someone took a hammer to the wall by the time we check out. "I am not doing this here."

"Up against the wall isn't your style? You weren't complaining last time."

"Maybe because I was too drunk to be coherent." I keep meaning to stop doing that, and every single time it's easier to not be responsible for my choices. If I'm drunk, it's not my fault. It's so much fun being aware of my own psychological hang-ups.

"You say this like it was my fault."

"You are such an enabler."

"Naturally." He has a point: letting people walk into problems of their own design is a very Djinn thing to do. "What do you have against bathrooms?"

"The part where I'm not a cheap whore from Lust, maybe?"

"They're never cheap. They just don't always disclose the full cost beforehand." Spoken like a demon who's dealt with Lilim in the past. Zhune drops a kiss on my forehead. "But if it matters to you that much, fine." He sweeps me up off my feet in a way that's not romantic in the slightest, and carries me back into the bedroom. 

"We'd get a lot more done if you could get your mind out of your pants, Zhune."

"No, we wouldn't." He sets me down on my feet, and then bends me over the bed before I've caught my balance. The bed's too high for me to kneel, to short to stand, and I end up with my feet splayed awkwardly to either side of me trying to find some comfortable position. I'd be a lot more comfortable if I could just stand up again, but there's a hand between my shoulder blades keeping me right here. "There's only so much work for us to do. Only so much assorted entertainment before we're bored of it. This keeps things interesting." He chuckles as one of my feet slips, leaves me scrambling for footing again. "Keeps us on our toes."

"It's the same thing every time. I don't know what you find so interesting in this." I'm always the one who ends up on my knees, on my back, pushing back up against whatever he's decided to do. Nothing really new any time that it happens, only different flavors of the same game. "You're sure you've never worked for Lust?"

"Never." Though he certainly has the one-handed pants removal skill down. If he took that hand off my back, I'd stand up and hit him. Try to hit him. Can't disrupt the flow of things once Zhune's making a statement about the power balance in this relationship, can I? I don't like the way the power's been sliding. I think he's still upset about being stuffed in a car trunk for a few hours while I found someone to patch him up. He doesn't like failing in front of witnesses. "Never directly. With the Servitors from time to time. We got along well."

"Like with Anthony." I nearly bite my tongue when he shoves right inside me, rough and impolite. This hurts, it hurts every damn time, but it's easier when I'm drunk. "Careful."

"You're still holding a grudge about the Impudite, aren't you?" He pulls back just far enough that it'll hurt again when he pushes back in. "I thought that was settled."

"It is settled." After chasing away the demon's pet sorcerer and sending in angry Gamesters to interrogate him, my revenge is complete. Holding a grudge past that would be a waste of effort. "I'm just pointing out--" My sentences come out unevenly, trying to work around the pain each time. "--that your taste in people to work with is suspect."

He leans in close, his weight across my back now, and collects my wrists to pin them to the bed. Still moving, but finally into a steady rhythm that makes the pain easier to deal with. Predictable pain doesn't hurt as much. That's how I got through two Habbalite supervisors. "Yet I chose to work with you."

"Goes to show you have lousy taste in partners." The bedspread bunches and shreds beneath my fingers. The blanket beneath, two sheets, down to the mattress pad, and I'm digging a pair of holes in the bedding from my two hands pinned down there. Pain comes in, destruction comes out. I don't want to think about the metaphor. Like the Discord isn't enough of a crack in the universe to let my resonance through. I've never understood the metaphysics of my own Band, never cared to.

"I have excellent taste in partners. And you taste excellent." He punctuates this with a bite on my shoulder, reminder of mine earlier, though his won't do more than bruise. It's a stupid enough play on words to make me roll my eyes. "I called you partner before you had this vessel."

Why does he have to go make a good point right when I'm angry at him? Because it's true. The power play gets stupid, he insists on fucking me no matter how I feel about the issue, and he can be a passive-aggressive bastard when I show him up in the wrong way, but at the end of the day I'm the one he chose to work with. "I'd be more convinced if you listened to my suggestions."

"I listened on the dog idea, didn't I?" He lets go of my right wrist to stroke my hair, in time with the movement of his hips. I've reached that not quite numb feeling between my legs, where pain is subsumed into pressure. It doesn't hurt when he moves anymore: it's just one more piece of stimulus in the room, like the light overhead or the drip of water from the shower.

"Wouldn't have needed to if you hadn't ripped the man's _arm_ off." I spread my fingers out in the fluff of dismembered blankets, let go of the tension in my shoulders. "That wasn't necessary."

"But it was fun." I remember when he used to pretend Djinn apathy around me. We're too honest with each other now. No wonder we can't stop arguing. "I'm allowed to have fun once in a while."

The palm of his hand brushes over the bite mark on my shoulder, and that's not fair, that's not fair at all, he knows exactly what that does to me. It takes effort not to make embarrassing noises, not to press up into his hand. "No. You're not allowed." I have to think out each word before I say it to get them in the right order. English feels as natural as Helltongue, and I can't make the grammar work all of a sudden. "You're a Djinn. You're not supposed to have fun." If it ever turns out that the Impudite who got me wired this way isn't screaming in a Game prison somewhere, I'm going to fix that.

"Am I breaking the rules?" There's a catch to Zhune's voice. So he knows all of my buttons to press? I know his. I don't know what it takes to turn a Gamester into a Magpie, but whatever it was threw his mind from fourth gear into park. If you know where to look, the damage is obvious.

"Damn straight you are." I don't mind the way he plays with my hair, even if I wish he'd hurry up and finish. It's not painful, not using Lust-wired reactions to make me twitch, but a weird kind of soothing to have him petting my hair while he's doing the whole thrust and grind further down. "You're off factory spec. Subject to recall. If anyone notices, you are going to be in _so_ much trouble. Which is why we need to keep running. If we ever stop, they'll catch up, and they'll find out."

Theft and the Game. The two sure topics to get Zhune to hurry up and finish. I don't get it, but I don't have to. He snarls behind me, something in a dialect of Helltongue so old I can't decipher it, and all the rhythm breaks down until it hurts again. He drops down on top of me, heavy enough that I can barely breathe. Hand around my wrist so tight that's going to leave bruises too.

My partner finally detaches, helps me stand up because one of my legs fell asleep from his weight against it. "That was a cheap move."

"I was getting bored." I flex my left hand and feel the twinge in my wrist. "Didn't want to lose a limb. Just because I don't like this vessel doesn't mean I want to start shedding pieces."

"You know I wouldn't hurt you." He's using a Djinn definition of hurt, but within those parameters, he's telling the truth. He sits beside me on the edge of the bed, not even going for the gratuitous looming. Side by side like equal partners. I'm not fooled. "Besides, I wouldn't have to hold you so firmly if you'd stop moving. Calabim aren't supposed to wiggle."

"So we're both off factory spec. It's why we get along."

He kisses me on the forehead. "Redemption bait."

I poke him in the side. "Game traitor."

"Precocious brat."

"Sex addict."

"It's only an addiction if it interferes with work." He swings his legs onto the bed to sprawl against the headboard. "I don't know what you're complaining about. How many demons are lucky enough to have a partner who watches their back?"

"Watches my ass is more like it." Right here is where I have two choices: I can stalk off into the bathroom for a shower and sulking, or I can curl up beside him on the bed and bitch at him in person. The first one's more satisfying, but the second will get me better results. So I flop down next to him, and let him pet my hair while I sulk right there in front of him. "You're not exactly a Cherub, partner. You'll only do so much if I get jumped by the wrong people."

"I got you away from Judgment." He runs a thumb down my spine, traces my shoulder blades, and ends up working around the edges of the bruise on my shoulder. "If you get dragged off by angels and I can't stop them, I'll shoot you myself and meet you back in Hell."

"You'd eat dissonance to save me? How sweet. Except for the part where it's fucking creepy."

"I'd do the same if you were running off with them voluntarily," Zhune explains. "Except you're too smart to try that. If you ever make a break for Heaven, you'll make sure I'm in Trauma first."

"Nah. Just indisposed." I close my eyes and think about Balseraphs and Seraphim, thin vessels with long fingers and piercing eyes. With Regan, the sex wasn't always great, but being around her was enough. Zhune's not my type. His vessel's all wrong, and his celestial form isn't the type I'd fantasize about. If I knew any Balseraphs who weren't trying to kill me I'd take up with them just to annoy him. "You'd be expecting me to run while you were in Trauma, and would have set up some counter in advance. So if I ever want to run I'll have to do it when you're trapped somewhere unexpectedly."

"That's hard to plan for."

"I'm a clever guy. I improvise well."

"Smug, too." He chuckles, and rolls over me for a moment to drag his pants up from the floor. "You get your best ideas when your back is to the wall, not when you have a week to come up with details."

"People should know better than to provoke a Calabite."

"They should." He digs his phone out of the pants pockets, and drops it in front of my face. "Do you remember that phone number?"

"I'm not calling."

"Yes, you are." He pulls my head closer for a long kiss, tongue working through my mouth thoroughly like he's checking my brushing technique. "We can do this either of two ways." One hand my bruised wrist, fingertips sliding across so lightly I can barely tell they're there, until it's taking all my willpower not to whimper and spread. It's not fair at all. "First way is that we keep at this until you give in and call."

"Second way?" I can't manage two damn words without a hiccup between them. Already I'm leaning in towards that touch, and that's nothing but fingertips on my wrist. Every moment of contact is perfect and amazing and seductive. I hate this. I hate that nothing else feels the way that does.

"Second way," Zhune says, and kisses my wrist. I could nearly cry from the feel of it. "Is that you make the call, make an appointment if you can manage it, and then we go do something you want."

Having some trouble thinking straight right now. What do I want? A long hot shower and a plate of barbecued ribs and a good cold beer and an entire skyscraper exploding in front of me and for Zhune to keep doing that forever and a day. Maybe getting what I want isn't a good idea. "Stop that, and I'll call."

"Good girl." He lets go of my wrist.

"I'm not your dog."

"No. My partner." One last kiss, and this one as platonic as it gets. "I'm almost done with that phone. Leave a number if you want." He leaves me be while he goes to get a shower and dressed.

I know the area code for the number. It's obvious to anyone who knows the sender: Penny's only ever been stationed at one Tether, and I can remember the same area code as the college I attended. The recording's generic, a recital of the number I've dialed and nothing more.

"I got the message you sent me," I say. He's not going to recognize my voice, not from this vessel. "Stupid way of sending it, but it worked." A Seraph should be able to pick out enough truth to know if it's the right person. "If it's all that important, call me back." I snap the phone shut. He can get the number from his side. 

Zhune's polite enough to leave the shower as I arrive. "You called?"

"Got the voice mail." We negotiate past each other in the cramped bathroom, and this time we don't so much as brush in passing. He's too aware of his own physical presence to make contact by accident. "The ball's in his court. See if the motel has a dryer and toss my clothes in, would you? I'm not wearing them wet."

"But you'd look so cute."

I step into the hot water he left running. So there's one advantage to having a pretty little female vessel: motel shower heads aren't too low for me. "After this? We're going to a car dealership."

"Whatever you want," Zhune says, and gathers up my clothes from the floor. It's handy to have a partner around who doesn't mind taking care of the details. While he's out doing the laundry, I can get a long hot shower and work on my self-deception. Whatever keeps me functioning is good, and so I'm getting amazingly skilled at lying to myself.


	4. In Which Seraphim Are More Persuasive Than They Are Usually Acknowledged To Be

I've introduced subtle but destructive flaws to seven new SUVs on the lot when Zhune's phone begins ringing. He flashes the salesman a smile, and snaps it open in the middle of the man's speech about the number of cup holders on the model we're looking. Why any car should need as many cup holders as these ones come with I couldn't say. Maybe they've overtaken reduced miles per gallon as the new status symbol among people with more money than brains.

"It's for you," Zhune says, offering me the phone. He steers the salesman away as soon as I take it, for another round of questions about cars we're not going to buy. "Tell me about the rollover stats on this one?" He's having fun making the man squirm by asking all the awkward questions and watching them spin the statistics: I'm having fun making sure the statistics remain true. I can't do much for rollovers, but weakening the right part of an engine can do exciting things to the mileage.

I lean against a silver SUV. "Hello?"

"Leo?"

He may not know my voice anymore, but I know his. Penny always sounds formal, as if he's thinking over every word before it comes out of his mouth. The polar opposite of Balseraphs I've known. "Yeah," I say. "So what's so important that you'd go to all this trouble to find me? I'm busy, you know."

"It wasn't that much trouble." Relative to what, I wonder. Balseraphs make you believe their lies, but Seraphim are better at telling the truth selectively. "What are you doing?"

"Finding out if I can single-handedly force the recall of an entire year and model of oversized car."

"That seems petty."

"We all have to keep ourselves amused somehow." Right now, I'm amusing myself by giving this car flat tires. "What do you want, Penny? I don't think you sent me that note, whether or not it was difficult, for a casual chat."

"Is it that hard to believe I'd like to talk to you?"

I scratch a long groove across the paint, right beneath the door handle where it's not easy to see. "That was another question, not an answer."

"You noticed."

"I did. Let's get to the point. You want something, and the sooner you tell me what I can decide if I'm willing to negotiate."

"Fair enough," Penny says, and damned if he doesn't sound pleased in the process. If Zhune gets off on Game and Theft talk, then I suspect I just gave a Trader a warm fuzzy feeling in his serpentine heart. "I'd like to meet with you in person. To talk."

"That's a bad idea, Penny. I'm not a free agent anymore."

"But you have enough freedom that you were willing to call."

"Doesn't count for much." I watch Zhune court the salesman, always three questions away from signing the papers. My partner's too tricky to not have a plan about where this angel-baiting is going, and it makes me nervous that I don't know that pan. It can't be as simple as wanting to measure himself against Penny and feel superior, can it? He's never that straightforward. "What are you getting out of this theoretical meeting?"

"A chance to catch up with what you've been doing, and to present a few opportunities."

"I'm not leaving, you know. I have a job. A partner. A Prince."

"It wasn't my goal to convince you otherwise in this meeting."

Which has to be true, because he's a Seraph, but still leaves a host of other goals that I might find anywhere from inconvenient to fatal. I like Penny, as much as I could like any angel, but that doesn't mean I can trust him. But I can't see how betraying me would be worth his time and effort. I may have annoyed several different Words in my short time on the corporeal, but when it comes down to it, I'm not worth the trouble of hunting. Except maybe for the Game. Or possibly Judgment. And the War gets annoyed about deserters, and Heaven's War might still be concerned about information I have...

On second thought, maybe there is a decent reason for someone to hunt me down. "Is it your goal to locate me so that someone else can shoot me? Because I object to that on principle. I'm tired of losing vessels."

"It's not." Penny sounds slightly offended, and I am far too emotionally off-balance if this makes me feel guilty. I will find a way to blame that on Zhune. "I am not trying to trick you into anything, cause you direct harm, set you up, capture you, or anything else of that kind. I'd like to talk in person."

"What do I get out of this?"

There's a pause on the other end of the line. I would have expected him to have a prepared answer for that one. "A different perspective," Penny says. "A conversation with someone who won't lie to you."

"I think this is a bad idea."

"You do."

"I'd have to bring my partner along."

"That's acceptable."

I wouldn't do this if Zhune weren't insisting. Lunch with the enemy is only a good idea for people who can do the seduction to the dark side shtick, and that's not one of my talents. The only time I pushed an angel into a Fall, I had a lot of help. This feels like running into a building wired to explode... And shouldn't I stop working with people who talk me into these things? "You seem pretty sure that I'll put myself my at risk just to talk with you."

"It cost little to ask."

I don't know economics well enough to figure out how a Trader weighs these risks. I don't know Penny well enough to predict what he wants out of this. But I know that Zhune's going to hassle me until I give in. "Fine," I say. It's not fine. It's a bad idea. When this goes wrong, I'm going to tell Zhune that I predicted it, and that's leverage. Maybe he'll listen the next time I say no. "When and where?"


	5. In Which Old Friends Come Calling

No alcohol in the last twenty-four hours. I've been wanting to drink myself unconscious for the last three days, so I made a point of not doing it. Partly because Zhune's been watching me as if he expects me to, and partly to prove to myself that I can. It's humans that get addicted to drugs, not me. I'm proving a point to myself because I'm the only one who cares.

Zhune wanted to dress me up for the event. He came around to my point of view after I nearly dropped a roof on him. I'm not a dress-up Calabite, and Penny's seen me in grubbier clothing than this. The meeting doesn't deserve special consideration. Zhune's the one who likes to stage-manage events, to get the style down. I just want this over. The sooner I find out what the catch is, the sooner I can counter it.

I've gone through two packs of cigarettes on the drive here, and my partner has enough sense to not say anything about it while I slouch against the car door and let another cigarette turn to ash between my fingers. "This is a bad idea."

This is the point where he's supposed to offer me an out. Or an explanation. But instead he says, "You're only looking at the short-term risks. Not the long-term potential for gain."

"You're right." I flick ash onto the ground. "Because I don't see any long-term potential for gain. Explain it to me."

Zhune stares across the parking lot with a blank Djinn face. "You're clever," he says. "Figure it out for yourself."

I may be smarter, but he has centuries of experience on me, older than the Word we both serve. His plan's based on history I don't have access to. Why doesn't Hell teach us history, when we're young and malleable and can be stuffed into classrooms for indoctrination? Maybe some of the Words do, but Fire wasn't one of them. "If you're going to be that way," I say, and pitch the stub of my cigarette into a trash can, "you have no right to complain when this goes south and I can't recover."

"It won't happen that way," says Zhune, and he flashes me a smile. Not one of the James Bond ones, but a smug, fond smile that's nearly parental. "I have faith in you."

"That's also a bad idea." I saunter across the parking lot, an eye out for Penny, and maybe for sniper locations. Old habits die hard. The park has enough tree cover to make aim difficult from any of the nearest buildings from three directions, but the fourth's more open than I'm comfortable with. Cities make me happier. It's easier to drop a roof with strategic beam removal than to take down a tree in the right direction.

Penny stands by a bench, hands clasped behind his back. Seraphim never look entirely comfortable in chairs; they wear human bodies, but deep inside they're snakes, suited for different positions than those right angles. Standing up, he looks at ease, no matter that the day is hot and he's chosen to wear business casual to a park. He has these eyes that aren't piercing, but precise. He doesn't look into your soul to rip out the truth: he weighs what's said and checks it against his own accounting to see if it adds up. The last time we met, I ran out on him after he'd done me a favor. I probably owe him something, and I'd find this easier to deal with if he were a Lilim collecting on the debt.

He turns his head to watch us approach, and waits until we're up close to speak. "Thank you for coming."

"It's been a while." I shrug, and wish I were taller. I'm surrounded by people over six feet tall, and here I am not far beyond five. I wave a hand at Zhune. "As you may have guessed, this is my partner. He's heard about you."

There is a long, quiet moment while Seraph and Djinn stare at each other over my head. Zhune's playing apathetic bastard while sizing up Penny, Penny is trying to figure out who this demon might be... I check my watch to count out the seconds. I refuse to lend any more weight to this game by paying attention to their battle. "This conversation is _fascinating_ , but some of us have places to get to eventually. Could we hurry the posturing and get back to the talking? Or I could come back when you're finished."

Penny's the one to break away to look at me. I'm not sure if that counts as him losing or winning the battle. "My apologies," he says. "I didn't intend to ignore you, after you've agreed to come here." He reaches inside his jacket for a white envelope. Identical to the one he sent me, but without my name on it this time, and less grimy from transit. "This is for you. I preferred to deliver it over in person rather than send it through other methods."

I don't have to ask who it's from. Does Zhune know me well enough to figure that one out? I stuff the envelope into a back pocket without opening it. It's a cheap trick, even if I can't call it underhanded. Too many people know how to push my buttons. "Is that everything?"

"How are you doing?" His hands shift about like he doesn't know what to do with them. Or maybe it's a nervous reaction to Zhune's gentle drifting around the two of us. I'm used to it by now: the two of us like to keep an eye on each other, and not stand around facing the same direction with our back to the unknown. Penny, maybe not so much.

"Fine," I say. We both know it's a lie, but there's not a lot of specifics to be dug out of that one. "You know how it goes. Get jobs, complete jobs, break a few things until it's time to repeat."

"Do you like it?"

"It's a living." The reminder hurts when he blinks down at my vessel. Okay, so it's usually a living, except for when it gets me killed. I grin the way I used to in my old vessel to cover that up. Time to stop sulking and act like I know what I'm doing. This is the Truth among demons: if you act like a victim, you'll be one. I don't know about angels, but you can cut through a lot of demonic bullshit with projected confidence and implied aggression. I sigh, and check my watch. "Now that we have the awkward questions out of the way, do you want to get lunch, or what? Because this is a long way to travel to avoid buying a stamp."

"Certainly," says Penny. He doesn't look at Zhune to check on his approval before agreeing. I remember why I liked this Seraph. That's a bad sign.

Penny picks the restaurant. I lead the way. Zhune's watching my back, and this almost seems normal--for some value of "normal" that means I think I'll live through it--until we're seated and I realize how off-kilter we all are.

Zhune not flirting with the waitress weirds me out. He hits on pretty women the way I turn bottle caps into dust: reflexively, and for stress relief. Is this focus part of his plan? I can assume that it involves screwing with Penny's head, because it wouldn't be a Zhune plan otherwise, but to what end remains unclear. The Seraph's not in a good position to be tripped, and I don't see how playing standard Djinn brute would help even if he were.

There's nothing I want to say to Penny in front of Zhune, that Zhune wants to say to either of us while he's playing dumb, or that Penny's saying to the two of us so far. Since Seraphim aren't big on small talk, that leaves us sitting around staring at each other once the waitress has disappeared.

I'm five seconds from asking an annoying question to break the silence when my partner stands up. Brief nod to me, and he disappears towards the back, away from the smoking section into the labyrinth of booths and eventually restrooms. Which leaves me sitting there alone with Penny, with privacy to talk about anything we want to.

And that's enough to clue me in to the obvious. The problem was that I was looking for something convoluted and sneaky, when it's actually straightforward, as Zhune's plans go. It's also flawed, because he doesn't know the Seraph. "He's such a bastard," I say, and slouch back in my seat with the bottle of beer. Still annoyed that the waitress carded me for it. This vessel doesn't look like a teenager, only...young.

"For leaving?" Penny doesn't have enough information, which is why he's not following yet. I'm not sure I want him to. Explaining that my partner thinks I'm redemption bait enough to lead an angel into compromising situations... 

I'm not up for it right now. "It's complicated," I say, exact truth. "Don't worry about it. If you wanted to give me the recruitment song and dance, now's your chance."

"If you were that easily convinced," Penny says, "you wouldn't be serving Hell."

"True." He has a nice smile. I don't see it often. I lean forward on my elbows to smile back. If Zhune's watching, let him think I'm flirting. This isn't what a Seraph goes for. "So what are you up to these days? Anything you're allowed to tell me?"

"Research, mostly." He toys with a glass of mineral water that he probably won't even drink. You'd think a Trader would be more comfortable with corporeal aspects of life, but he's never been the type to eat or drink much. Must be a Seraph thing. "The indexing system in the library of Destiny is quite good, but that doesn't mean every question has an exact answer within. Knowing what the problem is doesn't translate to knowing how to find the best solution."

"The trick is asking the right question." I palm my beer's bottle cap to break it down between my fingers. It wasn't a matter of asking what twisty thing Zhune was up to, but asking why he'd want to play so blank and hostile after setting up the meeting. The more unstable my relationship with my partner looks, the more likely Penny is to offer himself as an alternative. The man who keeps his promises and respects my intelligence, over the blank-faced Djinn thug. Except Zhune wants me to keep on being clever, keeps the promises he makes to me, and watches my back.

Penny did shoot an ex for me once. That has to be worth something.

"Usually. One can only cross-index so thoroughly. Especially when the solution turns out to be a matter of using a new application for an existing technique." He pulls out an expensive silver pen--working for Theft has given me more information than I ever wanted about the street value of small objects--to write on a paper napkin. "I came across a book on Russian architecture around the turn of the century that you might find interesting. It's a touch on the obscure side, but if you check several libraries you should find one with a copy."

"And here I am without presents for you." I check the back of the restaurant, but there's no sign of Zhune yet. He won't show up until we're in the middle of a conversation, when we'll both resent his intrusion and Penny will notice that I'm annoyed. "I could give you a few tips on office security..."

"We have Servitors of the Wind for that," Penny says. I can't tell if that was supposed to be a joke or not. My only interactions with those kind have been violent and brief, and we try not to draw their attention. We're not supposed to leave a trail of bodies in our wake too often, or people--and by "people" I mean our Prince--get annoyed. This doesn't always stop my partner, but we try not to be gratuitous. Despite the occasional dismemberment.

"Then I'm fresh out of ideas. I can cover the lunch tab, but since my partner has your wallet, I figured that was a wash."

Penny checks his pocket, though he has to know it's true before he gets there. "I didn't notice--"

"He wouldn't be much of a Magpie if you had." This is the part where I have to watch my voice, because it's too easy for casual to turn into snide. "Unless he wanted you to be distracted from something else going on at the time, in which case you'd suspect it, not with enough certainty to stop and ask, but enough to keep you thinking about it instead of looking at or thinking about what was really going on."

Penny just looks at me for a moment. "You understand it," he says. "Being underestimated. The problems it brings, and how to use it to your advantage."

"It comes with the territory." It comes with the vessel. "So it can be useful."

"I see." He takes a sip of his water in a manner that means he's using it to cover thinking, though whether about me or about how much he's underestimating Zhune, I couldn't say. I hope it's the latter: I couldn't be more obvious about it without going explicit, and if I start talking about my partner things are going to get weird. There's a lot I don't want to say about him in front of a Seraph, any Seraph. "What do you want, Leo?"

"For lunch?"

"No. In general. What do you want?"

"This is the deep questions part of the conversation? How about we move on to the part where we talk about sports?"

"You don't have to answer," Penny says, patient in a way I don't trust. He can be irritable and impatient about evasions when it suits him. If he's serene and zen at me being a brat, he cares more than he should about staying on my good side. "You were suggesting that you felt indebted, which isn't necessary, but is an understandable reaction. If you'd like to consider the theoretical debt repaid, you can answer the question. Otherwise, we can move on. Though I don't have much to say about sports."

I have to answer now. He can't go around offering to let me never pay up on what I owe and expect me to take that choice. "I want to do what I want." He has his water to give him pauses, so I have my beer to do the same. Fair is fair. "No, it's not a tautology. I want to do what _I_ want. I want the basic no-frills uncertain level of freedom your average adult human gets in this country, where they can screw up their lives and not worry about anything more than social disapproval and the legal system. That much freedom, that's what I want. But I'm never going to get it. People like you and people like me, we don't make our own decisions. Your side doesn't like it, and neither does mine. I've tried running away from both, and what it gets me is both sides deciding I'm a problem. I can no more get what I want than I can turn myself into a human."

"If you can't get what you want--"

"Why do I keep wanting it? I don't know. You tell me." I slump back in my seat again. My head's full of a buzz that beer can't account for, like I've just come down from the rush of a dangerous job. Maybe saying this sort of thing is dangerous. "It doesn't matter, does it? If I can't have what I want, it's meaningless to try. So I might as well stick with what I have now."

Penny's mouth presses into a thin line. A Seraph who doesn't know what to say, or has decided that every Truth he can come up with isn't appropriate for saying.

"Look. Just forget about it, okay? Ask me again tomorrow, and I'd tell you something different. Self-deception is something demons are good at."

"I know," he says, sounding so put-upon I nearly burst into giggling right then and there.

"It must be terrible." I wave my bottle of beer at him. "Listening to me talk. I'm probably telling lies half the time without knowing it."

"Not half the time." Penny takes another sip of his water, and after a moment I figure he's not going to clarify whether the deviation is in the direction of more or less. Now I'm curious, but not quite enough to ask him for details. It's easier for me to work out power relationships in conversations with demons than when I'm chatting with a Seraph. All the additional information he gets on top of what I say is either a power shift in his favor or something he owes me for, but I'm not sure which.

It feels like my turn to ask a question. More important, however, is the discreet rumble of disturbance from the back of the restaurant, I can't place how far back. Penny flicker-blinks, the response of a six-eyed Seraph in a two-eyed vessel who's heard something and doesn't want to react in an obvious way. "You caught that?" I ask, and shift in my seat to see around him. No sign of movement or noise back there beyond what you'd expect out of a restaurant. "What was it?"

"I'm not sure." Only Seraphim can be so accurate and honest with such useless information. "Your partner?"

"He's not the noisy type." Whatever it is, I'm sure he's investigating. The question is whether he needs backup. Or wants it. I decide not to stand up. Zhune's gone to all this trouble to give me time alone with the Seraph, so I'll stick to his plan until I get a chance to tell him how stupid it is.

More disturbance, and it's louder now. From behind the restaurant, not inside it, unless I'm misjudging the distance. By now I can recognize the sounds of destruction. Bad sign. Zhune doesn't break things for no good reason: that's my job. Penny's face is working its way towards concern or a frown, I can't tell which, past his usual mask of calm reserve. "Do you need to--"

"No." Thunder rolls by, loud enough past the dinner noise for even the humans in here to look out the windows at the clear blue sky. "Walk into an unknown situation in case he needs help? He's the one who wandered off on his own, and he can take care of himself." I'm sure Penny is picking up on how confident I am not in that statement. "I'd rather stay in a public area than get myself shot finding out what's going on."

"Ah," says Penny, a single syllable so bland and judgment-free it could be coming from an Elohite. Or a Djinn.

I just know I'm going to regret this. I finish off my beer, and slide out from the booth. "Back in a minute." Penny doesn't protest while I'm walking off, and I'm not sure what I'd do if he had. And why should he care either way, when so far as he knows it's a set of demons getting into a territory dispute?

I'm not sure who Zhune's tangling with. I've lost track of which Words we've annoyed in the last year or two, and that's only the ones where I knew in the first place. We get far too many jobs with unspecified antagonists for my comfort. Call me old-fashioned, but I like to know who's trying to kill me before I hit Trauma.

The back of the restaurant contains crowded lunch tables, a labyrinth of booths, dimmed lighting to cover up how dirty the floor is. If the beer were better and the crowd smaller, I might like the place. I duck through a staff-marked door with a ready excuse about looking for the restrooms, but none of the harried staff notices me once I'm past the second door to the kitchen proper. Inefficient setup, but it guarantees customers never get an accidental glimpse of the machinery behind the food. I can track where Zhune would have gone: back of the restaurant, wander for a moment, and then outside to investigate the disturbance--or, no, outside to give me more space and look for something else to do, with the disturbance coming after. He wouldn't walk out blind.

I'm not stupid enough to do so either. I pull up Ethereal Form, more Essence than I'd like to spend on making it stick, but the noise is lost in the echoes of disturbance. I'll take my chances with someone knowing I'm coming before I'll take my chances with walking out into I don't know where and I don't know who. The burnt out bulb in the ceiling is my friend. Even angels will have a hard time spotting me in here.

I'm fighting my healthy sense of cowardice to decide how to safely open that door when the problem's resolved for me. The door swings out--so they have that much up to fire codes--without anyone visible on the other side. Someone else didn't want to step into potential line of fire. Which suggests it's not Zhune, a bad sign. He wouldn't expect hostility from this direction while I'm inside to thwart it. I stay where I am; the less I move, the less likely anyone is to take a patch of shadow for a person.

Two breaths. Even vessels need air. The door hangs open in front of me, while at the other end of the hallway people slam back and forth through swinging doors to haul food out and dirty dishes in. Too much background clatter for me to pick out anything from outside.

One of us had to give in first. Turns out it wasn't me. The figure standing in the doorway is so backlit I can't make out his features for a moment, bright sunlight streaming past him. He props the door open with one foot, hands at his sides. Smart to avoid leaving bloodstains on the door. He looks down the hallway critically, I can make out that much in his expression. It's the way you look over a place where you think you left something, but now it's not there.

He steps backwards, the door swinging shut behind him. But I wait a good while longer before I move.

Penny's at the table when I return. I wasn't sure if he'd wait, not with how many minutes it took for the Song to wear off. Now that he's not facing anyone down, he doesn't sit so poker straight in his side of the booth. When I slide in across from him, he turns right back into the formal Seraph we all know and love. I guess we're not such good friends that he can relax around me, and I can't blame him for that. "I have a problem," I say, before he can ask.

"What kind of a problem?" I may as well be dealing with a Lilim. One from a hostile Word, and that's something I'd do well to remember. Considerate though he may be, he's still a Servitor of Trade--and, more to the point, an angel--which means he's pretty much obliged to drive a hard bargain if I give him the opportunity. I'm about to.

"My partner's dead." I've never known Zhune to hit Trauma before. I can't imagine he'll be happy about it when he gets out. And once he gets back I'll help him seek out creatively bloody vengeance, but that's not going to be today. Or tomorrow. Or possibly any time this month. "Couldn't say if the person who killed him wants to do the same to me, but we didn't part on the best terms last time, so it's a fair bet. I'm not sure that any non-lethal business he'd have with me would be a step up, either."

Penny takes a moment to process this. "Who was--the Mercurian of War?"

"Sean, right."

"It's not his name."

"But since he won't give me his real name, close enough for government work, and it's a lot faster to say than 'that one Mercurian of War you dealt with before', isn't it?" I'm too caught up in trying to work out a plan to pass through annoyance into actual anger. I'll have time to be upset later.

"I didn't bring him here," Penny says. He pauses, and says more slowly, "Not on purpose, or in any way that I'm aware."

"I know. How likely is it that he's tapped your phone? Or would bother to try?"

"Unlikely. Even if War has its moments of underhandedness, working against other angels that way is...not approved of. Nor should he be able to do so easily. He should have no reason to think of it..." The Seraph across the table's looking more upset about this than I am. How odd. Of course, I'm a lot more practiced at repressing. "Could he have tracked you down somehow?"

"Probably." Sean's smart, and he knows I'm trouble. There are too many ways for people to find me if they put the time and effort into it. That's the weird part, though. "Why he'd show up here and now is another matter. Anything he has to work with he's had for...a year, or so."

"Have you done anything recently that would have drawn his attention?"

Well, there's always the dismembered celestial of some sort we left in that office... "Not that I know of, but that doesn't rule it out. The incentive could come from the other end. Details of a project I worked on before... I don't know."

Penny's sigh indicates that he's caught some of the potential for why someone would be after me today. None of the specifics, I hope. He can't be too squeamish, not if he's willing to take out a Balseraph with a sniper rifle, but that doesn't mean he'd approve of murder or breaking and entering. I wonder if the Servitors of the Wind who claim such friendship with Trade are scrupulously honorable in their thefts, or if they just don't talk about the messier burglaries. 

He picks up his mineral water, and sets it down again. "You're taking this calmly."

"I'll panic later when I have the time for it."

Which is true, and enough of a surprise to catch another blink from him. "What do you want me to do about this, Leo?"

"I don't know."

"True. But unhelpful."

I shrug, and consider ordering another beer. Sean's going to need to change his clothes and wash his hands before he can walk in here looking for me, but that's no reason to wait long enough for him to do so. "Thought I should fill you in on the situation." If he doesn't want to put me further into debt, I can't argue with that. He's not a Lilim.

"What will you do, left to your own devices?"

I don't owe him an answer to that one. "Keep moving. Even if Sean can track me, that tells him where I am, not where I'm going, and he has to aim for where I am while I'm moving on. Wait for--my partner to get out of Trauma. Figure out a way to explain to Sean that I don't appreciate the interruption." Maybe I can drop a tree on him. Or a forest.

"Not run to a Tether for help?"

"What Tether would want me dragging an angel into their business? Besides, I couldn't afford their help, even if they were willing to deal." Zhune's the one with the secret caches and bank accounts and contacts. On reflection, I'll ask for a few of the passwords when he gets back. "I'll keep away from Sean, or I won't. If I don't, I get to find out what he wants from me." I hand a credit card--I'm not sure which one--to the waiter who shows up before he can set the check down on the table. I'm not in the mood for interruptions. "Maybe he just wants to talk. Seems unlikely."

Penny sets his hands on the table as if he might push forward to loom over me. But only says, "You can't ask anyone for help?"

"Only you. Hilarious, isn't it?" I smile insincerely. "Does it make you feel special?"

"You haven't asked."

"I don't know how much it would cost me." I pause long enough to take the card back from the waiter, and scribble out a tip larger than the cost of our drinks on the tab. It costs me nothing to be generous to waiters; Theft means not getting too attached to cash. Even your own.

"No more than you can afford to pay. There wouldn't be any point in asking for more." Penny stares at me for a long moment. "This would bring me into conflict with another part of Heaven, to aid you."

"This is why I'm not asking." That would be a good and noble reason not to ask. The actual reason has more to do with not wanting him to turn me down. It's less painful if I choose to walk away. He doesn't owe me a damn thing and there's nothing he wants that I'm willing to give him. I shouldn't have said anything, not when he can work that all out from my lie.

"There are better ways to deal with conflicts," Penny says. "This could have been handled otherwise." It takes me a moment to realize that he's angry, and, against all odds, not at me. "They can't expect to play with the fire and then consider themselves wronged when it burns them." The Seraph's cute when he goes metaphorical, and this is the wrong time for me to be thinking about that. "If I help you, I cannot promise your safety, or that I'll take your side in this if it's explained. But I won't trap you or deceive you, and will leave you to go free so far as it's my choice. That much I can offer."

"What do you want from me?" Is my Prince going to take this the wrong way if he finds out? Better that the issue never comes up. I'll have to explain it to Zhune once he catches up, but he knows better than I do how to handle the Prince of Theft. My only negotiation tactic with my Prince is to avoid him.

"Cooperation. Civility. If you can't offer that, a promise not to deliberately cause me more problems than I'm bringing on myself, and the same for any of my associates who become involved."

"And?"

"The option for renegotiation as circumstances change. I can't say how long I can help you, but I will give you warning before I withdraw my help or need more concessions to continue it. Similarly, I want fair warning from you before you abandon the deal."

There has to be a catch lingering in here. But if it's too good to be true, it's still good, and the longer I ponder the more chance there is of Sean waltzing in with clean hands and, I don't know, a police officer with an arrest warrant. War is sneaky and not above tactics I'd use myself, given the chance. "If the situation's bad enough, I may run for it without warning. Aside from that? Fair." More than fair. I'll find out about the catch later, because that's how these things work. "Do you have a spare key in your car?"

"Yes," says Penny. "Why?"

"Because my partner took your car keys when he got your wallet, and I'm not about to go search the bodies." I pocket the pen the waiter left with the credit card slip. He can afford another one with how much I left him, and minor theft makes me feel better. Slightly.


	6. In Which I Get to Annoy Entirely New People, Largely Without Additional Effort on My Part

Conversations with a Seraph can get strained at the best of times, and this isn't the best of times. We gave up through mutual tacit consent after fifteen minutes in the car. I'm so used to driving everywhere, except when I'm so drunk that even Zhune's better at it, that it feels strange to sit in the passenger seat and let someone else take control. Penny made four phone calls to arrange where we're heading, with one instance of getting off the freeway so that we could get back on in the other direction. It's almost comforting, that he doesn't have the situation under control either. Why should I be the only one in trouble?

Penny's one friend who's willing to take in a demon for an unspecified period of time--or who owes him enough that she doesn't have a choice, I can't tell--turns out to be a woman not much taller than me, but with the kind of shoulders that suggest she could take down a bull with her right hook. A vessel doesn't have to say anything about a celestial, but "doesn't have to" isn't the same as "doesn't." My first guess would be Cherub. She stands in the doorway for a moment after opening it, looking straight past Penny to where I'm standing behind him. Against all the odds and the time of day, she's wearing a bathrobe and fuzzy green slippers.

"This is a new low," she says. Her accent's not local, though I don't know enough about languages to place it precisely. If it matches her vessel, I'd call it Egyptian. "You might as well come inside."

Inside turns out to be out of my price range, though I could have guessed that much from the neighborhood. One wall has a television wider than the kitchen in the last apartment I rented, and another holds a pristine window with a sparkling lake view. The sun's creeping down below the pine trees on the far side of the water: that kind of scenery doesn't come cheap. It's not a good angle for snipers to use from that direction, but I'd be more comfortable with more wall there. I stuff my hands in my pockets before one of the knick-knacks on the shelves commits suicide from being too near me.

"Depending on your definition," Penny says to her, and he's not taking a comfortable seat here either, "there was that time in Cairo--"

"That was different." She's the one who sits down first, fuzzy slippers propped on the coffee table between the sorts of books that only exist to be placed on coffee tables. Is there anyone out there who would voluntarily read _Cutlery Through the Ages_?

"It's always different." Penny takes a seat across from her, perched on the edge like he might spring up at any moment. Balseraphs can lounge decoratively when they care to, but I've never yet seen a Seraph look comfortable sitting down. Not unless I count the little Flowers Seraph, and she was too brain-damaged to count as anything but crazy.

"Tautology," says the maybe-Cherub. It would be nice if I could get an introduction one of these days. "No event is precisely the same as any other event, if only by virtue of happening sequentially and thus having a difference in time, or concurrently and thus a difference in space. My point, Peniel, is that I would have expected better of you."

"No, you wouldn't have," Penny says, with admirable Seraph precision. "But you would have preferred that I hadn't met your expectations. Leo, sit down before you break something."

I'm the kind of person to be obstinate for its own sake, but maybe not right now. I sit down on neither of the two facing couches, but a third perpendicular to them both. There are too many seating options in this room. "I wasn't touching anything."

"Do continue not to," says the other angel. I suppose she could be a Soldier, but I don't think Penny trusts me far enough to leave me with a mortal, clued in or otherwise. I haven't killed all that many people, but I don't object to it on principle. She's watching the Seraph, not me, which says something about either how little she considers me a threat or how much she's annoyed at Penny. "You couldn't find any better place to bring her than here?"

"No," says Penny.

"There's this marvelous category of location that perhaps no one informed you of, equipped with personnel, resources, security measures, and people who are prepared for unexpected arrivals as part of their job descriptions. It's called a Tether, and last I checked, there were a few in this country that you have access to. Not secret ones, either."

"I _know_ what a Tether is," Penny says, "but it wouldn't have been appropriate."

"I'd like to hear the explanation for that one." She gives me another look, brief and unimpressed. I have never possessed any impressive vessels, and this one impresses only the wrong sorts. I hate being cute. "A good explanation. This may require interpretive dance."

"I'd pay to see that."

Penny looks down at me archly. "You can't afford it."

"I could save up." I grin at him, because if everyone else in the room is going to be annoyed, I may as well have a moment of fun. "I'm _good_ at acquiring material wealth. It comes with the job."

"If you take anything from my condo, I will break your fingers," says the Cherub, and I believe her. "Consider yourself warned. I don't suppose you're interested in working for the Wind?"

"Why should I be? It'd be exactly like my current job, except with less moral flexibility and a mandatory dose of self-righteousness."

She shrugs, as if to say she was only asking out of a sense of obligation. "I'm waiting for an explanation, Penny."

The Seraph blinks slowly. I decide to be nice enough to interpret. "He doesn't want to explain in front of me, for one reason or another. Fine by me. If you two need to talk in private, don't mind me. I'm not planning on running off."

"Oh, fine," says the Cherub. She stalks towards another part of the condo, bathrobe fluttering behind her. "If you're going to be like that about it, I'll take the explanation in private. Let's get this over with. I have someone to meet in the Vale in half an hour, and I'm not going to keep her waiting over this."

I pick at threads of the sofa upholstery until I hear a door shut. Then I pad down the hallway to listen at doors. When it comes to finding out how likely people are to kill me, I don't have any shame. It's a luxury I can't afford, up there with a sense of dignity and a partner with fewer weird kinks.

"They wouldn't let her go," Penny is saying, by the time I've found a decent spot to listen from. The doors in this condo aren't built to block sound. "It wasn't an option."

"You're a greater idiot than I thought if you promised not to hold her," says the Cherub. She sounds more affectionate than before, whether because she finds bad planning endearing or because she didn't want to show that in my presence. "What were you thinking?"

"That she would be safe here for a time."

"That's not what I meant, and you know it." Bedsprings creak inside the room. The Cherub sitting down, because Penny doesn't move like that. His sounds are the footsteps back and forth on the wooden floor, restless searching for a place where he can stand quietly without being noticed. He's happier to stand in the background and listen than to talk, I know that. "It's one thing to take in a Renegade who only needs coaxing in the right direction, or to maintain contact with someone who might be convinced over time. It's another to harbor a demon being sought by another part of Heaven. Why do you make these promises? You didn't have to."

"It seemed appropriate," says Penny, so quietly I can barely make him out.

"You're as bad as an Elohite sometimes, you know that? Or worse, because they'll explain their reasoning. You only stand about looking inscrutable."

"I know what I'm doing, Tess."

"You believe you know what you're doing, and that's not the same thing. You should know that better than anyone."

Tess has a good point. I leave them to their argument and wander back into the living room. So even Penny's friends aren't convinced that he should be doing this. Much as I hate to admit it, Zhune may have been on to something when he set this up, the detail where Sean killed him aside. My Seraph apparently has a history of making mistakes in judgment, possibly involving not quite redeemable demons. That's a long distance from a Fall, but it's a very short distance to being compromised in ways an angel shouldn't let himself be.

The glorious picture window isn't the only part of the condo looking out over the lake. I find a balcony through a second bedroom turned office, with a sliding glass door that doesn't stay locked against me. Outside I can let cigarettes burn through and figure out what's going on. This would be easier if I knew when Zhune would get back. A week or so in Trauma is a different sort of thing to cope with than a month or a year.

Maybe I should have checked in, and someone will be angry that I haven't. I'm not sure what the procedure is when one's partner is shot. This being Theft, I'm not sure that there's actually a procedure. But any Seneschal I could locate--and I don't know where that many Theft Tethers are--would be angry that I brought angels to their door. Quietly disappearing until Zhune's out of Trauma is still my best route for not bringing more trouble on myself. I think. This is the problem with working for a Word that I wasn't created in: none of it's natural to me. I second-guess my responses.

Four cigarettes before Penny tracks me down on the balcony. Must've been a long conversation. He looks neither pleased nor upset, but if I had to choose one end of the spectrum to call that poker face, it'd be the latter. He stands beside me at the railing, staring off towards the trees beyond the lake.

"Is she kicking us out?"

"No," Penny says. "Not yet. But she won't let us stay indefinitely."

"Won't let me stay, you mean." I toss the last glowing cigarette butt off the edge of the balcony. Two left in the pack. "That's fine. I didn't expect that any of your friends would be happy to have me. Though I was hoping you'd have some sort of safe house."

"There are such, even in Trade. Every Word has need of such things. But..." He's been doing a lot of hesitating today. I think I've kicked the Seraph out of what he's accustomed to dealing with, and considering how well he dealt with a rescue mission for a kidnapped human last time we were together, that's saying something. I guess it's different to hit opposition from your own side.

"But if you try to use those resources, they'll want a better return on the investment than what I've promised you."

"Yes. Exactly."

I light another cigarette. Never could stand the taste of them, but watching them burn is a good nostalgia kick. Back when I worked for Fire, I didn't spend a lot of time worrying about angels. Do my job, keep my Prince happy and my girlfriend happy and my supervisor happy, wreak the occasional bit of mayhem in my spare time. It wasn't an exciting life, but I liked it. Then Regan had to drag me into that mess with Heavenly Fire and Judgment and the War, and everything went straight to Hell. In the literal Trauma sense. "It would be easier if I could," I say conversationally. He's a Seraph, not an Elohite, and if I stick to the truth he can't get any reading on how I feel about it. "It would solve a lot of problems if I said, screw it, I've gone through three Words in Hell, why not give Heaven a try? But I can't do that, so there's no use wishing for it."

And then I feel guilty for going on about it, because Penny stares out at the lake in a way that shows he's trying hard not to say all sorts of things he wants to. This is the problem with hanging around angels: too long in their company, and I start feeling guilty for doing nothing wrong, or thinking I should rescue my partner from the trouble he brought on himself. I can blame Regan for that too. I spent so long learning to keep the Balseraph happy, I get concerned about the Seraph's feelings and opinion of me for no good reason. "So who is she?"

"You can call her Tess," Penny says. It's probably related to her real name rather than her Role name. "She's an old friend of mine."

"How old?" What I'd rather ask is, how close of a friend? But there's no polite way to ask that, and I said I'd try for civility. This will last right up until Sean appears, or I get drunk. There are limits to what I'll do for Penny.

"I've known her since she was a reliever," Penny says, which doesn't answer the question. "She's the child of another friend of mine." His lips twitch, and I swear that was nearly a smile. "She seems to have inherited his opinions on my ability to make decisions."

"You have to admit, she has a point. Assuming her opinion is that you shouldn't be let out on your own until you can demonstrate more reasonable decision-making processes. Helping me out here is unlikely to win you friends and fabulous cash prizes."

"Probably not."

"Though I could arrange a fabulous cash prize. On principle." Ash drips from the end of the cigarette, one feathery chunk at a time. "How much trouble will this get you into? With your own Prince. Archangel. Whatever."

Penny shrugs. Seraph's prerogative to give imprecise answers to impudent questions. "Money wasn't part of the agreement."

"Like you said, this is all subject to renegotiation as circumstances change." I toss the cigarette off the balcony to watch the spark spiral down until it hits the muddy bank and snuffs out. Wind and fire go together in strange ways, because the wind can fan flames hotter more easily than it can blow them out. Most of my peer group flamed out earlier, burning up in wild pyrotechnic displays when they let their plans burn too hot. I was the careful one, and look where it's got me. Working for another Word and having conversations with angels. Maybe the real survival strategy for Servitors of Fire is to get out of Fire. "Why did you choose to look for me now? That envelope couldn't have been circulating more than a month or two, or we would have heard about it before I got it."

"I spoke with Iris," Penny says.

I can fill in the rest of that myself. "You know that I was drunk when I called, right?"

"He was quite clear on that point."

"So I can't be held responsible for anything I said at the time."

"In my experience, Leo, you are more likely to tell the unedited truth of your actual opinions when you're drunk than at any other time."

There's not a lot I can say to that. Damn Seraphim with their excessive knowing. I'd mind angels less if they couldn't read my honor, relationships, emotions, motivations, honesty, location. It would also help if they'd stop trying to kill me every few years, but demons do too, so I don't hold it against the Host. "Just because I believed it then doesn't mean it's true now."

"Some day," Penny says, sharp and more bitter than I've heard him before, "you may know yourself well enough to tell the truth as you believe it and have it be the actual truth of your own heart. But it probably won't be today."

"Self-deception's a survival trait. If I told myself the full truth, I wouldn't be able to cope." And that's the honest truth right there, which a Seraph ought to appreciate.

"Are you coping now?"

"I'm still alive, aren't I?" I light my last cigarette. "That's what matters, isn't it? It's the ultimate measure of success or failure. Did I reach the end of another day without dying? Check yes or no. If yes, wait twenty-four hours, ask again. If no, game over. The whole stupid War comes down to that. I don't care about the big issues we're supposed to be fighting over."

"I won't try to convince you they matter," Penny says. "But do you really think you're the only thing in the world that matters?"

"Of course I do. Definition of a demon, right there. I can express interest in other things, but at the end of the day that yes or no question is all that matters. "

"I don't know how you do it," Penny says. He leaves before I can ask him what he means by that, and it's just as well. The whole conversation's depressing me, and I only have the one cigarette left burning.

I end up sticking to the balcony for the evening. Once Tess and Penny's other friends show up to be angry at the Seraph, it seems like the safest place. Through the office door, I catch glimpses of a man in an expensive business suit, a woman with a limp and graying hair. Soldiers or more angels I couldn't say, and the snatches of argument that I can hear convince me not to step inside and ask. The man in the suit sounds like someone on the phone from earlier; he's probably one of the friends that turned down Penny's request. The woman I don't know a thing about. 

Even from the balcony, I can tell that nobody's taking Penny's side, except Tess. And she's not doing that often. It makes me want to step back inside and defend him. Or introduce subtle flaws to these people's cars. But nothing I can say would help, and Penny would hold it against me if I tried to kill his coworkers, so I stick to the balcony and the ever darker sky. Somewhere beyond the trees on the far shore are enough lights to put up a glow that outlines the pines against the sky. Pretty enough for the sort of people who like that thing. I'd prefer a cityscape. With buildings there's a design behind the outlines and windows and lights, but trees grow however they grow.

Tess brings me a mug of hot chocolate that I don't want, and only accept to be polite. "You've put Peniel in a very uncomfortable position," she says. She's changed from the bathrobe to a dark red sari, but she's still wearing the fuzzy slippers. They don't make her seem any less dangerous.

"He's put himself in that position." I balance the cup on the balcony railing. "He was the one who chose to make the promises he did."

"It was stupid of him."

"Not so stupid. I'd guess that everyone back in there is in favor of dragging me off to a Tether, or worse. The only thing stopping them is that Penny'd start taking dissonance if he let them. He didn't make those promises just to keep me happy."

Tess folds her arms. "Does that please you? That he'd be put in this position?"

"The part where his friends don't pitch me off this balcony _is_ a perk, yes. Though it probably wouldn't kill me. Depends on how hard they threw, and whether I hit lake or any of those big rocks on the shore."

"There are some people who would throw you to War," Tess says. "And tell Penny to eat the dissonance he brought on himself."

"I'm sure there are. Even angels can be pragmatic bastards. Believe me, I know." I drink the hot chocolate on the theory that if she wanted to hurt me, she wouldn't need to bother drugging it. It's good cocoa. I'd prefer a beer. Several beers. Maybe a case, though I wouldn't get through more than eight before passing out if they were any good. For a demon, I'm a complete lightweight. "War's going to show up anyway, if we stick around long enough."

"If they break down my door--"

"Then I'll pay for it. Fair enough." I'd like to break something right now. That enormous picture window, this mug I'm holding, the shiny laptop glowing inside the office. This whole condo's too perfect and clean and full of people who hate me. If it weren't for Sean, I'd have already climbed down the balcony and gone looking for a bar. "Don't you have a party to play hostess at, back in there?"

"They're busy taking turns at letting Penny know he's done something stupid," Tess says.

"Still? They aren't bored of it yet?"

"They're young," she says, "and thus surprised by the opportunity."

"He's not stupid," I tell her. I think she knows this. "But he's an optimist on this point, and letting what he hopes for make his decisions instead of being pragmatic."

"Faith," Tess says, "is the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things unseen. I will grant him hope, because the world needs more of it. But I haven't seen anything in you that's evidence in your favor."

"That's because you haven't known me long enough. Spend enough time around me, and you can learn that deep down I really _am_ a thorough bastard." I smile toothily.

She doesn't take the bait. I'm restless and irritable enough that it's a disappointment. A good screaming argument with someone who hates me is what I need to let off some tension right now, but it wouldn't be civil to start one myself. "I think he made a bad choice," she says. "But he wouldn't have brought you this far unless he saw something in you that I haven't."

"Something I haven't seen either," I tell her. Which is a complete lie, given that drunken phone call I deeply regret making to a certain Seneschal of Flowers, but if I can't lie to Cherubim I can't lie to anybody, and what's the fun in that? "If he's willing to be taken advantage of, I'm not going to turn down the help I need."

"I'd hardly expect otherwise," Tess says, and leaves me alone a while longer.

She and Penny don't manage to kick their angry friends out of the house until midnight, or thereabout. The pricy watch Zhune stole for me last week has stopped, as they inevitably do. When I venture back into the living room, Tess and Penny are back in the same positions they started in hours ago, on opposite couches trying to look respectively disapproving and indecipherable. Except the Cherub is tired enough to look peevish, and Penny's descended into sullen. I claim couch number three after depositing my mug in the sink. I need something to break. "Everyone having fun?"

"If God wanted Malakim to be that whiny," Tess says, "She would have created them in the beginning with the rest of the Choirs. Next time, Peniel, how about you drop in without warning? It wouldn't be any more unpleasant, and maybe other people wouldn't appear to give their opinions."

"I never called the Virtue," Penny says. For which I am grateful, though not enough to do anything about the gratitude. If I wanted to get stabbed, I could have waited for Sean and saved myself a lot of hassle.

"And yet, he appeared." Tess has another mug of hot chocolate, but from the smell I'd guess it's been doctored with something stronger. Why don't I get that kind of complementary beverage?

"They sometimes do that." Penny's shoulders slump more than I've ever seen them before, which is to say his posture is slightly less than perfect. "It could have been worse."

"That's always true, and thus a meaningless statement." I don't know Tess well, but I think she's sulking too. So that makes three of us. "On the grand scheme of things, given the vast potential for utter disaster within the universe, the War, and the Symphony, it's always the case that, technically speaking--"

"Do shut up," Penny says. 

If I were more drunk, I'd applaud. Since I'm sober, and sulking about that, I keep politely quiet.

The doorbell chimes. Cheap apartments have buzzers, while expensive condos get five-note bells to let people know someone wants in. "Oh, for God's sake," Tess says, climbing to her feet. "Who now? How many people did you call before you got to me?"

"It's probably War," I say. She turns to frown at me. "What? The timing's about right. At least he's not breaking down your door. Yet."

"If he's willing to talk," Penny says, "we may as well see what he's willing to negotiate."

I feel like I should argue, but what's the next best option? Jump off the balcony and hope nobody's watching the back? It's not like Tess is going to throw herself in front of me if Sean wants to kill me, but two angelic witnesses mean he's unlikely to be too vicious. "Fine," I say. "But if he shoots me, I'm not paying for the couch."

"Fair enough," says Tess, and opens the front door.


	7. In Which Delicate Negotiations Occur

Sean's wearing the same vessel as the last time I saw him. Nice to know some things never change. He's less bloody than at the restaurant, but not entirely healed, judging by the limp on his way in. He makes sure he's on the inside before stopping to talk. "Good to see you again," he tells me, with a vicious smile.

"Not true," Penny murmurs.

"If you get blood on my furniture, I will break your kneecaps," Tess tells him. "And your legs, if it's the blue sofa." This doesn't get any commentary from Penny, but I'd call it truth, and Sean must feel the same way. His smile wavers. "Hot chocolate?"

"No thanks. I'm here on business." He looks over the three of us, two angels and a demon. Funny that he should be the outsider in this group, but I think Tess will side with Penny against the Mercurian, even when it comes to me. "I don't suppose you'd be reasonable about this?" This aimed at Penny, though I think I'm covered in that question too.

"Tell me," says Penny, "who attacked first, behind the restaurant?"

"You have me there," Sean says, and flops cheerfully down on the sofa beside Penny. Not the blue sofa, I note, which is the one Tess returns to. I wonder how much it would increase my chance of survival right now if I sat on that one. "I could have tried to talk before resorting to violence, but I didn't see any reason. You're not going to hold that against me, are you?" The last at me, smile even brighter. I'd like to make him bleed, and he knows it.

"You killed my partner."

"He was an irredeemable bastard."

"But he was _my_ irredeemable bastard." And if anyone has the right to kill him, it would be me, not some smug white-winged Mercurian.

"Next time I'll ask permission." Sean sighs dramatically. It's small comfort that no one in the room looks impressed by this. "Look, we can make this nice and straightforward, or you can be difficult about it."

"You've been watching too many cop movies." I don't like being surrounded by this many angels. It feels like my back's up against a wall, and I don't know who's going to start shooting first. Okay, not Penny, but I don't know beyond that, and I hate the not knowing. If there's anyone in this room I can get on my side, it's Trade, so it's time for me to stop sulking and do some active manipulation. "Tell me what you want, and maybe we can negotiate. Assuming you don't want to shoot me outright, in which case, the answer is no."

"It's negotiable." Sean takes in the crowd, and I can see the moment when he realizes that he's playing someone else's game. Being a Mercurian gives him an edge on the rest of War for this approach, but he's sitting in a Trader's living room. "You're not in a good position to bargain. I may have killed your partner, but you two started it by killing an angel."

"I haven't killed anyone lately." So it wasn't a demon whose arm we ripped off? That's a pity; angels take this kind of thing more personally. Demons don't find it any major surprise when another demon takes them out, allies sometimes excepted.

"Then your partner did." Sean sounds testy. Good. Let him look like the one who can't hold his temper; for all of Trade's supposed neutrality, I can't imagine War's one of their favorite Words. "What's important here, Leo, is that this is _your_ fault, so you get to solve it."

"How is this my fault? Even if you want to hold me responsible for some death I didn't cause, you've paid me back in equal measure. Call it settled."

"Give me back the artifact and I will," says Sean, which is not what I expected. If he's willing to let the bloody mess in the office slide in exchange for that trinket, it has to be more valuable than I'd realized. But then, I knew it had to be important enough for a Wordbound to send the two of us after it. We don't bother with the small stuff unless Zhune's bored or his friends want favors.

"Sorry," I say. "I see a lot of artifacts in this job, so I couldn't guess which one you meant. I don't have any on me. Anything else you'd be interested in?" Penny frowns at me, but doesn't say anything. Obvious sarcasm gets a pass on the truth-o-meter.

"If you could try to remember one in particular," Sean says, "that would be...helpful." I suspect he's restraining a lot of violence. The man ought to look into that temper problem of his. "A wooden box about this big, not very heavy, definitely _not yours_."

"'Definitely not mine' really doesn't narrow it down." I don't need everyone in the room frowning at me, so maybe I won't be entirely difficult. "But the rest of it rings a bell. Still don't have it."

"Do you remember what you did with it?" Now I wonder what's inside that box, because Sean's body language isn't reading hostility so much as an intense desire to know more about the artifact.

"Of course I remember. What do I get out of telling you?"

"How about I don't kill you?"

"Not a bad offer. For how long?" If a Servitor of War will promise me a cease fire, I'm not about to turn that down. He can find someone else to kill me on his behalf, but that should give me time to run.

"Depends on how much you tell me. And what the answer is."

"If you're going to build in that many conditionals, I'm going to want a contract so that we're clear on who's doing what to whom when."

"I don't have time for this," Sean says, sitting up straighter. He's not trying to look casual anymore. Unfortunately for him, he's not about to get support from anyone else in the room on the matter of formal agreements for trades rather than winging it on unspecified expectations. "Tell me what you did with it--"

"So that you no longer have a reason to keep me alive? Not without a better guarantee than your goodwill. As you might recall, Sean, you don't have a good track record with keeping to verbal agreements. I'm not doing shit for you until you come up with a promise that Penny agrees will hold." I don't like the way Tess is watching me, from where she's been quietly sitting next to Sean on the couch. I'm safer as the demon her friend unwisely brought in than as a person of interest. Penny's not going to drag me off to a Tether for complementary brainwashing, but I can't say the same for Tess. I need to remember not to play too hard towards Trade.

Sean glares at me, then collects himself. "If you can tell me where that artifact is right now, I will promise to never bother you again, _ever_ , so far as it's my choice."

Now that's an interesting twist. Not that I'd send him after a coworker even if I did know the exact location of his puzzle box, but I wouldn't have expected that much of a concession. "I don't know where it is anymore, so I'm not going to bother debating how much that's worth."

Sean snorts. "I can't give you a value on your information until I know what it is."

"As soon as you have the information, it stops being valuable, so this might be a good time for you to work out some hypothetical offers. If you're in so much of a hurry."

"Why are you being so _difficult_?"

I roll my eyes. Childish gesture, but appropriate. "Because I don't like you, because you killed my partner, because you've tried to kill me at least once, because you aren't any good at keeping your promises... Why should I be helpful? And if this artifact is all that valuable, you should have put it somewhere safer. An office safe and locked wooden door do _not_ constitute a security system. There wasn't even a burglar alarm."

"There _was_ someone there to watch it."

"So maybe you should have chosen someone who wouldn't die that damn fast." Now I'm back to everyone in the room glaring at me. Some people are never happy. "If you're not willing to name a price, I'll make an offer, because I'd rather you were off chasing the artifact than bothering me."

"I'm listening," Sean says. Likelihood of him trying to kill me the instant the agreed upon time expires: high. But that's why I'm the one setting terms.

"I'm willing to tell you what I did with the artifact from when I picked it up to when I didn't know where it was anymore. In exchange, you don't try to kill me, trap me, get me into more trouble than I already am, or encourage anyone else to do so in your place."

"Until?"

"My partner gets back. At which point, if the two of you want a rematch, it's not my problem."

Sean doesn't take long to think this over. "Deal. So what happened to it?"

"I want this in writing."

Tess stands up. "Don't bleed on anything while I'm gone," she says, and pads down the hallway. When she returns, she has paper and a sleek gold-plated pen. Traders fuss more over symbols of material wealth than most Lilim I know. "If you want a Divine Contract, I expect a commission."

"If you insist," Sean says. The Mercurian's sulking at me. I don't care. No, wait, that's a lie: I care just enough to find it enjoyable. Why should I be the only one unhappy around here?

"Not this time. Sign your name and tell Penny you mean it, and I'll consider that enough of a guarantee."

"Oh, you're all heart." Sean scribbles down his name once Penny's finished writing out the scanty details of this contract. "I fully intend to honor the details of this contract as written here, assuming you do the same. Good enough?"

"Truth," Penny says. I'm getting flashbacks to dark motel rooms and debates over how much I should get paid for a job. I'd feel safer right now if Nik were around to watch my back for me; there's nothing quite like a clingy Outcast Kyriotate for running lookout. I miss the neurotic Domination sometimes, almost enough to go looking for her. She'd hate Zhune, though, and that's if she's even somewhere I could find her. If she had any sense at all, she went back to Heaven apologizing for bad behavior and asking for another chance after I threw her to Flowers and Judgment.

Sean tosses the pen back to Tess. "Now give. Little wooden box, obvious artifact, what did you _do_ with it?"

Penny tucks the contract away inside his jacket. Maybe it'll find its way to where every other contract Sean and I have signed waits, in some locked filing cabinet deep in a Trade Tether. I never asked Penny what he did with the contracts, and he never volunteered the information. He's been quiet through all of this, not one comment on how the deal should be arranged. Later tonight I'll grab a few minutes alone to ask him what he thinks of new developments. He's not the brilliantly creative kind, but as angels go he's smart.

"I gave it to the person who asked us to swipe it in the first place. The breaking and entering is a job, not a hobby." What's funny is that Sean never thought to have Penny vouch for my own intentions on this contract. There's nothing holding me to telling the truth right now but my own choices. My own choices and the likelihood of Penny calling me on lies, yeah, that too. "Where she took it I couldn't say. Even odds that she was a go-between for the person who wanted the artifact, because she didn't seem interested in it."

"So who did you give it to?" Sean leans forward, elbows on his knees. Like he's going to bolt the instant he has a lead. Curiouser and curiouser.

This is the part where I could dodge around the truth, lightly enough to throw Penny off. It's frowned on among Theft to sell out coworkers to the cops. But a contract is a contract, and this isn't useful information. "Shedite. Wordbound, I think, though I couldn't say what Word."

"That's not useful," Sean says. It's like watching water draw closer to boiling. "You took the artifact, you handed it over to someone unspecified, and that's _it_?"

"I never promised you _useful_ information. But that's what I have." I shrug, sinking back in the couch. "There's nothing else to tell. Swiped the box, opened it up, handed it over--"

"You opened it?" My shoes end up on the couch because Sean's on top of me, and there's nowhere else for my feet to go when a Mercurian has me pinned down. His vessel's not so heavy as Zhune's, but he's no lightweight either, and it's making it hard for me to breath. "What do you mean you _opened_ it? It's not supposed to be something you can open!"

"Um," I say, because I have a very angry Mercurian's knees on my chest and hands on my shoulders, and I suspect that if I say the wrong thing the latter will end up on my throat. "What do you mean--"

"Hey," says Tess, and yanks Sean off me. "No shoes on the sofa." I swing my feet back down onto the floor promptly. "And you? The one who just signed a contract--"

"I was not going to kill her," Sean says. "Really. Maim, maybe. I don't think the contract covered maiming."

"Not on--"

"The couch, I know, I _know_." Sean backs away, hands in the air. Penny's stood up at some point, leaving me the only one still on a couch. Because what I needed today was a whole pack of angels staring down at me at once. "Why did you open it?"

"It was a puzzle box. That's what they're for. Why shouldn't I have been able to open it?"

"It's not supposed to have a solution," Sean says. He's gone very quiet and calm, which is more frightening than the shouting. "The box is indestructible. There are pieces that move, but they never resolve into anything."

"For an angel," Penny says. "It wasn't meant to open for anyone but demons."

Sean looks at the Seraph. "Well," he says. "Isn't _that_ an interesting kink in the situation." He turns back to me, and for all that he promised otherwise earlier, I have no doubt he'd kill me now if he thought it would solve the problem. How typical of War. "Could you contact the Shedite again?"

"No." I sigh at his frown. He doesn't have to act like I'm a Balseraph; even when I'm an asshole, I'm honest in my business dealings. "Ask Penny if you don't believe me. Even if this agreement covered leading the Host to my coworkers, which it very much doesn't, I wouldn't know where to find it."

"You must have some way of getting in touch with people if you're taking jobs from them," Sean says.

"Sure. I wait for my partner to tell me what the job is, and once we've done it, I wait for him to tell me where we're dropping off what we swiped. It's worked so far." I could use a beer right now. I'm tired of being glared at, and specifically tired of Sean. That Mercurian showing up never bodes well. "You of all people should understand how useful plausible deniability and limited knowledge of the details can be. For example, if I get cornered by some Servitor of War who wants to beat the information out of me, I don't _have_ it to give him. Funny how that works."

"Right," says Sean. "Funny how that works." He sits down beside me on the couch. "Is that drink offer still open? I need something to drink. Something stronger than cocoa."

"I'll see what I can do. Try not to break the contract while I'm away." Tess steps into the kitchen, which leaves the Mercurian and I on the couch with Penny standing in front of us.

Sean is taking up too much of the couch. I'm not about to tell him so. "I know," he says to Penny, "you're annoyed that I don't seem to be taking my promises seriously enough. Rest assured that it's because I have more important things on my mind."

"If you mean to abandon your promises every time you find them inconvenient, you'd be better off not making them in the first place." I knew there was a reason I liked the Seraph. He can sneer down at people as elegantly as any Balseraph ever could. Arrogance looks good on that type.

"It's not like I killed anyone," Sean says.

"Yet," I say. He's close enough that he only needs to turn his head to glare at me, practically nose to nose. I'm ready to glare back. "Oh, like you weren't thinking it."

"Much as it might make me _feel_ better, it wouldn't be very useful."

Penny says, in a measured voice, "You'll have to find someone else to do your contracts next time. I see no reason to lend an air of legitimacy to promises you intend to keep only so long as they suit you." He turns his back to both of us, and stalks off down the hallway. I think someone else is about to take my place at the balcony. It's a good place for sulking.

"Some people take everything personally. It's not _my_ dissonance condition." Sean stretches his arms across the back of the couch. "How likely is this Shedite to come looking for you, with your partner out?"

"I can't imagine why it would."

"To make sure you're safe? Ask for a date? Hope you can open a second theoretical puzzle box, God help us all if one should exist?"

I take Tess's arrival with another mug of cocoa as an excuse to slide further down the couch. "Unlikely. So what's in the box?"

"None of your business."

"Except you've made it our business," says Tess. She has a mug for me too, and this time it's been dosed with alcohol. The Cherub is growing on me. Some angels are contagious that way; it's a compelling reason to keep my distance. "Give us more detail, and maybe we'll take you more seriously. There are coasters on the table."

Sean puts his cocoa down on the indicated coaster. We are all conscientious houseguests around Tess. "Near as we can figure--and none of the information I'm working from here has enough support to constitute a valid reference in an undergraduate paper--that box was a creation of Gebbeleth."

"Who?" Tess and I ask at the same time. She frowns at me. I drink my spiked cocoa, taking care to only set it down on a coaster.

"Demon Prince of Secrets. A very old one."

"That would explain why I've never heard of him," Tess says. "A dead Prince?"

"No one's sure, but that's a good bet, since there's some other Prince with the same Word skulking around now." Sean shrugs it off. "That's not the important part; it's only relevant in that the box is supposed to be impossible to get open, once you've sealed something inside. Requiring the correct rituals, location, and so forth. We might have been misinformed."

"Unless the right location has a diner built on it, I'm guessing you were." My cocoa's full of rum, which wouldn't have been my first choice. The alcohol's still a welcome introduction to my vessel's blood system. "It took a while to work out how to open it, but it didn't seem supernatural. Only cleverly constructed."

"Apparently it likes demons. What do you expect, given its origins?"

"More secrecy?" I should probably shut up. It's something to ask Zhune about, when he gets back; I've never been interested in Princes that died off, but maybe I should know more. "So what's inside, that you're so worried about?"

"You're the one who opened it," Sean says. "What did you see inside?"

"Rolled parchment. Only a scrap of it." That much information he's allowed to get, according to the contract he's not going to honor. "So what's the paper? Another secret?"

"More or less." Sean's going through his cocoa as fast as I'm going through mine. We both needed a drink. "You didn't get a chance to read it? I wouldn't put it past the Demon Prince of Secrets to scatter decoys. Maybe it's nothing."

"I didn't read it." Though now I'm wishing I had. If I knew where that Shedite was, I might ask about the puzzle box out of sheer curiosity. Okay, sheer curiosity and the potential for Sean-directed blackmail. With all the dirt I have on the Mercurian, it's unfair that I never get to use it against him.

"It's probably nothing." Sean sets his cup down, stands up. Even I can tell he's lying. "I have better things to do with my time." He smiles down at me, all white teeth and ill intent. "Catch you around later when your partner's back?"

"I'm looking forward to it." He's smart enough that he'll shoot me in the back when I'm not prepared, but I'm enough of a vindictive bastard to have something ready for him if he misses.

Penny shows up in the hallway once the Mercurian's gone. "You can't remember anything else about what was in that box? Or how to find the demon you gave it to?"

"No, I can't." And I'm getting tired of people asking me this like I'm going to hold back details out of spite. I express my spite in far more vicious ways. "Why do you care?"

"Because the scrip the Intercessionist wishes to find is a lost sorcerous ritual attributed to Makatiel," Penny says. "The Demon Prince of Disease--"

"That one I knew, thanks. Voted third most likely to destroy humanity as we know it, long dead, collaboration between people who don't like to admit collaborating to destroy the mad Prince, et cetera." So there are a few dead Superiors I've heard about from time to time; Zhune told me that story to point out collaboration between Judgment and the Game. From the way he told it, I suspect he was not only around at the time, but actively involved. "That would explain why Sean's so eager to find it again."

"I'd as soon find it myself," says Tess. The sleepy-eyed Cherub's gone alert at this news. "God only knows what War would do with it--"

"War isn't known for dabbling in sorcery," Penny says. "Or a desire to release plagues."

"Biological warfare is still warfare," says Tess, "and 'isn't known for' is not the same as 'won't' or 'doesn't' or 'hasn't ever'." She shrugs it off, frowning over her cocoa. "We can't do anything about it either, without more information."

Penny sits beside her, this time. It's like a game of musical chairs. I'm not sure if we're declaring allegiances or making power plays. When Sean sits beside me, it's not only hostile, it's his way of saying he can take me. When Penny sits beside Tess, I think it's meant as a sign of friendship. "It's not our responsibility," he says. "Not without more to go on than that."

"We should still tell someone." She leans in towards him, subtle but distinct. And this is the only Trader that would take us in, when Penny went asking for favors. Not because she owes him, but because it's him. Now there's something to remember. "We're talking about the potential for massive death. That collapses economies, you know."

"I know, and we will pass along word. But we haven't the resources or skills to investigate further. Despite any of our preferences"--and here it's me that he's looking at, as if I'd interfere either way, which I won't--"we're not the ones equipped to handle the situation. The Intercessionist has more appropriate contacts, knows what he seeks, and is unlikely to approve of anything of Makatiel's making."

"Very well. If someone tries to do in humanity, don't say we weren't warned." Tess checks her watch. "I have another meeting to attend, and I can pass along the message to admin while I'm there. Can the two of you avoid releasing any plagues, staining the furniture, or inviting more houseguests in for the next six hours?"

"I believe so," says Penny.

"Good." She rests a hand on Penny's shoulder when she leaves the couch. "I can see that there's history between the three of you that I don't know. I'm willing to leave it that way, so long as it won't come back and bite me." I'm back to being a non-entity in this conversation; what she has to say to him may be about me, but it doesn't involve me. "Don't do anything stupid. Like taking on problems that aren't yours. There's been enough of that already for one day, don't you think?"

"I'll be careful," says Penny. I admire his ability to avoid answering the question.

"For your values of careful." Everyone around me looks tired. It makes me want to pack up and run somewhere else. Zhune may be passive-aggressive at times, but he's never exhausted. Too Djinnish for that. I think you have to care to be tired out by it. Tess meets my eyes, and I don't know what she's looking for there. I don't think she's finding it, either. I can be as inscrutable as anyone else when I want to; you don't have to do blank if annoyance looks plausible. "Good night, Penny."

"Good night." From anyone but him, I'd call that passivity spite. But that's not something Penny does.

I'm not sure what I should do at this point. Nothing, probably. There's a distinct chance that someone's trying to destroy civilization, but it's not my problem.


	8. In Which I Make More Promises

Tess is somewhere off in dreamland, and I'm half a cup of spiked cocoa shy of being drunk. There ought to be a table here, wooden floors, a tea kettle on. Drunken conversations with Penny are supposed to be accompanied by that Flowers Tether where I first ditched Katherine. I've already told him more than I should in whining about my job. Seraphim are sneaky, and can conduct interrogations merely by listening sympathetically and making interested noises.

Or maybe it's that with Zhune gone, I'm desperate for the company. I hadn't realized until now how entirely my partner has taken over my headspace. I have no other friends, no contacts in Theft that haven't come through him, nobody I talk to longer than it takes to get through a job except for him. While Zhune's in Trauma, I don't know what to do with myself, and there's something deeply wrong with that. There were more people I could count on when I was running Renegade than now.

And if I don't come up with something else to think about, I'm going to start talking to Penny about Zhune, and then everything gets messy. "I don't know why you keep coming back," I tell him. "You must have better things to do with your time."

"I don't know why you continue to serve Theft," Penny says. "It doesn't suit you."

"I would complain about any Word I served. We're talking about Princes. People obsessive enough about broad concepts to bind their own souls to the ideas, and then force vast numbers of demons to run around supporting the same. I'm not seeing the fun in this. Also, you're avoiding my question."

"It wasn't a question. It was a statement of opinion."

"With an _implied_ question."

"If you want answers, perhaps you should try asking direct questions," Penny says. Almost a smile in there. If he's trying to manipulate me into switching sides, this is all well and good, but if he likes me, this could be a problem.

"Give me another half hour, and maybe I'll start." The doorbell chimes again. "If anyone else wants to kill me tonight, they'll have to take a number."

"I'll get it," Penny says. It's probably only my imagination, but I like to think that I can recognize Seraphim and Balseraphs from the way they stand up, the way they blink. It doesn't come through for every type of celestial, but the six-eyed serpents are too disconnected from the corporeal to look natural in human vessels. When Penny gets up, I can picture the uncoiling. He's the only Seraph I've seen in celestial form, and while it's not quite as sleek as a Balseraph's form, it's still worth admiring.

He opens the door halfway, standing in front of it where the person on the other side can't see in. A woman's voice, too quiet for me to make out the words. "There's no one here by that name," Penny responds, polite and precise. 

"Uh-huh. Then have you seen his little sister? About my height, red hair, sort of punk..."

This night keeps getting better. I finish off my hot chocolate, and join Penny by the door. "It's not red, and I'm not punk. Is there a problem?"

The Shedite's in the same host, or tracked back to find her again so that I'd recognize the person who'd come calling. "Uh-huh," she says, and examines her fingernails. "Little problem. Can I come in, or what?"

On the spot decision time: is it better to let the Wordbound Shedite wander into the Trader's house and risk getting stabbed by an angry Cherub once this is discovered, or to go somewhere private with a Shedite who might or might not want to kill me? On the whole, I'm more afraid of Tess. "No," I say, and slide past Penny, who's still in the doorway with a frown for the whole business. Like he can't figure out this is another demon come calling. "It's a bad time. Let's talk outside."

She looks Penny up and down. "Uh-huh. Whatever you say."

"I'll be right back," I tell Penny, and he knows that I have no idea if this is true or not.

I end up in the parking garage beneath the complex with the Corruptor, sitting on the hood of Penny's car. "What's the problem?"

"Where's Zhune? In bed?" A sneer from her. I guess Zhune's habits aren't a secret. "I'd rather talk to him."

"Then you'll have to wait a while. He's in Trauma."

She freezes for an instant, eyes dark. "What happened?"

"That box you wanted? Someone else wanted it more." I flip through the truth for useful pieces of information that don't sound like I'm the one to blame. "A Servitor of War came calling. I got out of there before he spotted me, my partner didn't. It happens. And I _was_ keeping my head down to avoid notice until you showed up."

"If they could take him out..." The Shedite's host wears a pale pink sweater, so tight her ribs are outlined when she takes a deep breath. "Huh. Even he gets unlucky now and then."

"Exactly. What did you need from me?" The further we can keep this conversation from suggestions that rampaging Servitors of War are the fault of someone getting too indiscreet during the heist, the better.

"It's the client," she says. So I was right about the Shedite acting as a go-between for someone else. Lost sorcerous rituals of Makatiel aren't the sort of thing Theft would hold onto for the shine or style. Maybe for the sheer obscurity. "Happy as peaches that the box was opened when I delivered it, but now he says he needs it put back together. Some ritual component, I don't know. Think you can do it?"

"Maybe. Do you have the pieces?"

"Uh-huh." She has the whole collection in a cheap velvet bag that came wrapped around a bottle of whiskey. I sort a few out on my palm under the garage lights while she folds her arms and takes dramatic breaths. "So. Can you?"

"It'll take me a while, but I think I can. Come back tomorrow and I'll be done with it or sure I can't finish it."

"Oh, I don't think so." She smiles, and in doing so looks not so much like a human with a Shedite inside as a demon holding a human mask in front of it. Creepy as all hell. "If I'd known Zhune had been stupid enough to get killed, I would have picked you up earlier. I hear you're not allowed on walks without a leash, and I'm not getting in trouble for letting you disappear when no one's looking."

"If I were trying to disappear, I would have done a better job of hiding from you," I say with as much affront as I dare. I'm not sure how she tracked me here in the first place. "What I'm _trying_ to do is avoid dragging that War angel on my tail into anyone else's territory. Or did you want me running to you with the cops right behind?"

"Uh-huh. And now that I'm offering help, you don't want it?"

I prefer dealing with the less intelligent demons of Theft. They're much easier to talk circles around. "And now that you're offering help for free, I already have help that I've paid for, and need to work off the payment for. I have obligations to meet. I _can't_ skip out now without breaking promises." Because I told Penny I would be back, and because I still owe him one way or another for this. I get off the hood of Penny's car before I start removing the paint job from general annoyance. "Give me a day to work on the box and pay my debts, and I'll stick with you until Zhune shows up again. But I can't break a contract once it's been made."

The Shedite drifts closer to where I'm standing, one of her host's hands twirling absently through long blond hair. "You get in trouble, and you run to Freedom before your own Word?"

"Theft doesn't want the trouble. Freedom's willing to negotiate." It's not going to help any that I haven't lied once in this conversation if I'm called on it later, but telling the strict truth while implying everything else is an art form I enjoy. "Give me a day to finish this and a place to meet, and I'll show up with what I've managed. You've found me once, so you can find me again, if you don't trust me to show."

She makes lazy circles around me, so I have to either let her walk behind my back or turn around and around to face her. I let her pass behind me unseen. The Shedite's too powerful for me to challenge her under these circumstances, so why bother watching for treachery? 

And if all else fails, there are pipes running all along the garage ceiling that would make for a lot of distraction once broken. If I really had to run for it. 

"I could send you to Trauma behind your partner," she says. "You'd be sure to stay put that way."

"I'd be easy to find, but not in much of a condition to put your box back together." With any ordinary Servitor of Theft, I might point out that our Prince doesn't appreciate random backstabbing within the Word. We're not Factions, even if we spend time around them. A Wordbound has enough sway to get away with it.

"That's all you have to say? If I kill you, you can't put the box together?" She likes to do the talking when she's behind my back, right where I can't catch the body language. "Have you ever been in Trauma before?"

"This is vessel number four. Do you think I'd choose this one myself?"

"Huh. When you put it that way..." She smiles again, when she's passing in front of me. Definitely for effect. Forget a nasty something lurking behind those eyes, it's something inhuman behind the whole face. "Guess you're too much Zhune's type for it to be coincidence. If you're not going to run..."

"I'm not stupid." Occasionally hasty, or prone to bad judgment calls, or inexperienced, or working on incomplete information. Any of which can make me look incompetent. But not stupid: that point I'm sure on. "I keep my promises. If I say I'll show, I'll be there."

"Uh-huh." She twirls a finger through her hair. "I'll give you the one chance. Finish paying what you owe, and meet me tomorrow at sunset. You saw the laundromat in town?" When she steps past me again, a thick strand of hair dangles from her fingers.

"Two of them, on the way in." I've been out of Hell too long, and I'm not used to casual sadism anymore. It's distracting. "You mean the one with the bad lighting and the abandoned lot beside it."

"Uh-huh. It's a bad place for pretty little girls to wander alone after dark," says the Shedite. "I like it. Be there."

"I will."

She stops in front of me, twisting the hair into knots. "Uh-huh. Not, 'I'll try to make it,' or, 'I'll do my best'?"

"If I can't make it to a damn laundromat half a mile away by tomorrow evening, I have bigger problems than not being able to keep that promise." Like death by Mercurian, or getting hauled off to a Trade Tether by Penny's friends when he's not looking. Or something worse that I haven't thought about yet. There are disadvantages to having a sharp mind, one of them being the ability to come up with all sorts of plausible scenarios to fulfill the criterion of "bigger problems."

"I like you," says the Shedite, which is, in reflection of what it last declared a fondness for, not reassuring. "You can work for me until Zhune's pulled himself together. Do you know anything about casinos?"

"...not really." And aren't they usually infested with Greed and Game demons?

"You'll learn," it says. "Get back to work, and I'll see you tomorrow night. Don't be late."

"Wasn't planning on it." I have a predator smile I don't pull out often, especially with demons. No point in drawing attention or inspiring a fight. But I'm not going to roll over and show my throat in every single conversation with someone I may be working with long-term, Wordbound or not. It's not a Prince, only bigger and more powerful than me. Lots of things in this world are bigger and more powerful than I am. So I smile right back at her while she's leaving, and now that she's leaving through a door I'm watching, she either backs out or turns her back on me. There's so little trust between demons.

Nearly a frown before she turns her back, but then she sashays out. A demon can't show any sort of fear of people who are less powerful. It would give us the wrong idea. I can think of two good ways to kill her host before she reaches the door, even with her Forces in there making the human a powerhouse, but am I going to do anything? Of course not. I'm not an idiot. She's safe around me.

I'm a little too drunk to be talking to anyone, if I'm thinking about how much damage I could to do Theft--okay, to all sorts of Words--with some resources and time to plan. That's what I'm thinking while I walk back upstairs, back to Tess's door to knock and wait for Penny to answer it. The answer is: not as much as I'd like, but a lot more than any one of those Words would like me to. My mind turns that way naturally when I'm tired, or drunk, or getting pushed around too often. Zhune usually recognizes it fast enough to turn these thoughts off in other directions; we once spent a festive afternoon playing at skeet-shooting with a case of MP3 players he swiped from I don't know where. Toss them up in the air, see how far away I could toast them, and how many times, before they hit the ground. I was pretty drunk, but even one beer away from passing out, I can still break things. I'm good at that.

Penny opens the door before I've finished knocking. "Who was that?"

"It's complicated," I say, and let myself in past him. He closes the door behind us, sits down beside me on the couch. Probably because I chose the one that isn't facing another one. "I'm going to have to leave tomorrow night. Work's calling, and I haven't saved up enough vacation time to call in sick much longer."

"Leo--"

"Give me a minute, okay? I need to get the repression and denial back in place before I'm up for pleasant conversation." Penny blinks at that, blink-blink-blink the way Balseraphs and Seraphim do, but I'm too busy sorting out my psyche to worry about that. At some point, I'm going to have to deal with the way I'm projecting issues with Regan back onto the nearest target with a Balseraph-shaped outline, but that'll have to wait.

I shake the bag out over the coffee table. Puzzle pieces will give me something else to think about. "Is Tess going to be busy much longer?"

"All night." Penny has his hands in his lap, and is trying to watch me out of the corner of his eyes in a subtle way. It's not subtle. "Do you _want_ to live in denial?"

"Better than being dead, isn't it?" I sort the pieces out on the glass tabletop, stacking books out of the way to give me space to work in. This is going to be one of those puzzles where you need three hands and a set of jeweler's tools to put it back together, but I'll have to manage. I'm on a deadline.

"I don't see how that follows, Leo."

"It's simple." Easiest thing to do is pick out all the pieces that go on the outside, and consider how they're going to look to recreate the original pattern. I studied the box long enough when working it apart to have that fixed in my memory. "If I ever spend too much time being aware of all the broken things inside my head, I'll go completely around the bend and do something stupid that'll get me killed. As a demon who is very much not in favor of death when it's my own, I therefore repress the inconvenient impulses, go into denial about conclusions that would support those impulses, and otherwise remind myself that it's a _wonderful_ life until I believe it. Or find it plausible enough that the other stuff doesn't break through. Do you know if there's a pair of tweezers around that I could borrow?"

Penny no longer attempts to be subtle. He's staring at me now, and his eyes say he's trying to figure out if I got a lot more drunk during my twenty minutes outside. Poor Seraph. It must be painful to deal with the truth all the time. Regan lied herself happy every day. Even the days that should have been happy for her with the truth alone. A Balseraph thing, that. "I don't know," he says, after so long a pause I'm not sure if he's answering my question, or making a general statement.

"That's okay. I'll deal."

"What are you doing?"

"Putting this back together." I hold up three pieces for him to see, balanced between four of my fingers. They're in the right places, but they won't hold there until I get more pieces in to keep them set. Like a problem back in my physics and engineering classes, about balancing forces. It's a good thing this box is indestructible, because if I'm going to spend hours handling all the intricate parts inside it would never work again otherwise. "It's always easier to take things apart than to put them together again."

"I know," Penny says. He picks up two pieces from the table, holds them next to each other. "May I help?"

"Sure. If you feel like it."

"I like putting things together," Penny says, which is answer enough, and must be true.

It doesn't take long for us to work out that while Penny's better at spotting which pieces fit next to each other, none of them will join if he's touching them. We get into a comfortable rhythm of picking through the pieces together, and then him passing me the bits that he's spotted before I have so that I can slot them into place. The box builds back up completely differently than it came apart. In the diner it worked like a standard puzzle box, if a fiendishly complex one: slide this piece so that you can slide that piece so that you can move a third piece and then adjust the first one slightly to a different position that releases another catch... But now it's like trying to rebuild a broken egg without any glue. A three-layered eggshell, at that. Eventually one of my hands is taken up completely with holding it all together, and all I can do is accept the pieces Penny hands me, try to work them in without letting go of anything inside.

When the last piece slides into place, I'm stone cold sober, but I don't mind. I've had worse nights. Considering some nights I've had, this might not be saying much. I let the box go, and look over the six faces to make sure everything's in the same place it was when I started. "The Demon Prince of Secrets may have been so true to his Word I never heard of him, but I'll give him this much credit: he knew how to build a puzzle box."

Penny tucks his hands away somewhere else. Now that the box is back together, I don't think he wants to touch it. I suppose Princely artifacts aren't good news for angels. As for me, I'd as soon keep the box if I hadn't agreed to deliver it to someone. It would be a good place to hide something small I really didn't want anyone getting at, so long as I didn't mind taking the time to open the box when I wanted inside. I could do it faster now that I've opened it once before. If I had anything I wanted to hide that badly. All my secrets are right inside my head.

"Dawn," Penny says.

"Is it?" Inane question on my part, but I don't get the same cue angels do about that time of day. I straighten up to work the cricks out of my shoulders, after, what, five hours of hunching over this box? The sky through the picture window is the wrong direction for dawn, but the sky's graying. "I suppose Tess will be up soon. Does she have a day job?"

"Yes," Penny says, and volunteers no information beyond that. I used to have a day job, which I liked except for the part where I hated everyone in the office. Everyone in the office except Holly, who was no brighter than the average mortal, less pretty than some, and bought cinnamon candies for her candy bowl because I liked them. A Cherub of Fire with anger management issues killed her for no good reason, and she's another one of those things I try not to think about.

I'm more polite than any Calabite of Theft who isn't planning something nefarious should be once Tess shows up, dressed up exactly as a stockbroker should be with none of the fuzzy slippers nonsense. Which is a pity, because while she was in the fuzzy slippers threatening people with bodily harm I liked her as much as I've liked any Cherub. Which is, again, not saying much. As a stockbroker, she's not interesting. She's the sort of person Zhune swipes watches from to give to me; the one she has on her left wrist is exactly like the one on my right wrist, except mine stopped running.

"I'll be back late," she tells Penny. "Don't let her break anything."

"If it's late when you get back," I say, "I won't be here."

She doesn't say, "Good." But she probably wants to.

Penny waits a few minutes, standing around Seraphically thinking about whatever it is that Seraphim think about. I wash the dishes, something I haven't done since I was working as a substitute teacher and trying to care for a pyromaniac kid. Elementary school was the more challenging part of the description; fires I know how to deal with, but teachers take them so seriously.

And then he fishes his car keys out, and says, "Would you like a beer?"

"Why, are you offering? Because last I knew, you didn't have a wallet."

"I set up a meeting with two Servitors of Theft," Penny said. "You can be sure that I didn't put anything of importance in a wallet carried in a pocket. I'm not stupid. Do you want a drink or don't you?"

"On a Monday morning?" I wipe my hands on my pants, which doesn't make much of a visible difference. I could walk into an empty room wearing new clothes, and walk out two hours later as grubby as if I'd been digging ditches. It's a Calabite thing. "Is this a clever ploy to get me drunk enough to talk?"

"Would it work, if it were?"

"Probably."

"Then let's get going," Penny says, with an arch Seraphic look down at me.

I knew there was a reason I liked the man.


	9. In Which I Talk Too Much

"Have you read the letter?"

"I don't want to read the letter." I've been hoping that if I left it tucked away in a pocket long enough, it would disintegrate, or I might forget about it. Both of these are unlikely, but everyone needs something to hope for. If I had only had one or two beers, I would change the subject politely. I've lost count--not hard for me to do when it comes to alcohol--which means I don't have the mental acuity left to do so.

"I have wondered," Penny says, "why you left her with Judgment. Of all the Words to choose from."

I prop my feet up on the coffee table. My shoes are off, so it's halfway to polite. I think this conversation is my way of paying Penny what I owe him. "Because Flowers proved incompetent at keeping her safe, and because Judgment wouldn't hand her over to War. Besides, I only knew the locations of so many Tethers of Heaven. Limited selection."

"You didn't want War raising her?"

"I didn't want them trying to use her against me."

"I don't think they would," Penny says, which is not the same thing at all as _They wouldn't._ Especially coming from a Seraph. "Not in any way that would hurt her."

"You don't. I do. If it suited their purposes. War from Heaven's no more moral than the War from Hell. They have diametrically opposed final goals, but all the blood along the way serves them both. So they're both pragmatic. You can't trust them to do anything but what will get them to their goals." My mood hasn't fully settled into depression or pliability, the two usual end results of me getting drunk. The moods aren't mutually exclusive, either. "I'd as soon hand Katherine to Regan as to Sean."

Penny tilts back his own beer. He'll drink when he's somewhere he feels safe, which means he's smarter than me on at least one point. "You're upset about the Mercurian trying to kill you."

"Yes. When he shows up, which I wish he'd stop doing. It never ends well. The last time he decided to muck around in my life, it didn't even end well for the angels. You'd think he'd learn." I grin at Penny, no particular prepared grin, though I don't think this one's nice. "Or maybe he doesn't care. It was Judgment."

"I didn't hear the details on that one," Penny says. Very carefully. I'm sure he got as much as I told Iris, which was too much.

"You don't want to. And I don't want to talk about it. How much of a bastard Sean is, maybe. We're agreed on the general outlines of that, if not all the details."

"How long are you going to hold it against him?"

"Which part? Breaking the contract, or trying to kill me?" I want to curl up with my head in Penny's lap and complain about people who've tried to kill me in the past. Zhune would let me do it, but I'm not so sure about the Seraph. Seraphim are probably less cuddly than Djinn. "The contract part I worked out, with everything afterward. Trying to kill me, that I'm going to hold against him until I get a chance to repay the favor."

"You mean to kill him?" Penny doesn't sound as concerned about this as an angel should be. Either because he doesn't think I'll really try, or because he agrees that Sean deserves it.

"I mean to _try_. At least once. He didn't succeed, so I don't feel obliged to do so either. But a good shot at it is only fair." 

"You have strange ideas about what's fair."

"Says the Trader who is, last I checked, getting a demon drunk after arranging to hide him from pursuers for a while. At reasonable rates."

"You're in a female vessel," Penny points out, about as politely as such a thing can be indicated between two celestials. "Wouldn't the female pronoun be more appropriate when referring to yourself in the third person?"

"I am, unfortunately, female right now. No one takes me seriously. I was used to demons not taking me seriously, because I'm a Calabite who speaks in full sentences and does not look ready to punch holes through cows for looking at him funny, but now even humans don't take me seriously. I hate this vessel. And so I will refer to myself in the third person as male if I want to."

"If it makes you happy," says Penny.

"English is a stupid language, anyway. You should hear me go on about the subjunctive, comma, misuse of the."

"I have."

"Oh." Right, I've been drunk around Penny before. "Do you want to hear it again?"

"Not particularly. Why don't you want to talk about Katherine?"

"Because it was stupid of me. I'd rather not be reminded. I'm in a healthy state of complete denial about that whole unfortunate episode." He frowns at me, which means I'm probably lying again. I lose track, sometimes. I blame Regan. Too much time with a Balseraph can make anyone fuzzy on the finer details of truth. "What does it matter now? She's well rid of me. She'll grow up to be a lawyer, or whatever it is Judgment raises kids to be."

"You saved her."

"The War wouldn't have killed her. She didn't need that much saving." Okay, that one I don't believe. Regan may have her own sense of honor, but my ex-girlfriend also has a vindictive streak the size of Canada. If I hadn't run in to do the stupid hero thing, Regan would have made the kid pay. "She doesn't owe me for anything. I screwed up her life for long enough, and got her out of it later than I should have."

"It's your fault that she was in the custody of demons?" Penny hands me another bottle of beer, and doesn't object when I fritz the cap into a shower of dust rather than using the bottle opener. "From what she told me, I gathered that such a state had been set in motion by others before you arrived and interfered."

"Yes. Maybe. It's complicated. Her Cherub might have Fallen on her own, or maybe not without my help. It's not like Regan would have been able to set things up properly."

"The Cherub Fell," says Penny, "but it was her choice."

"There are choices, and then there are choices," I say. This feels like it's important. "I chose to serve Theft, but it wasn't because it was what I wanted to do. She chose to accept the Fall rather than continue to care, but she had help getting down low enough that this seemed like the only place for her to go."

"It still wasn't your fault."

"Oh, stop it." I point at him with my beer bottle. "You don't get to absolve me of responsibility for what I did in the past, just because you think I have potential to go circle-shaped and fiery for you. I have been an utter bastard out of convenience or malice, time and again. When that Cherub Fell, I had set her on the cliff's edge first, and I was _proud_ of it. You don't get to absolve me of sin when you weren't the one harmed."

"You were proud of it then," Penny says. "Are you now?"

"I don't want to talk about this. It's always Cherubim, causing me problems. Cherubim and Mercurians. Occasionally Malakim, Elohim..." I count through the Choirs in my head. I'm drunk enough that I have to fish around to remember all nine, of those numerous enough to matter. "I have nothing against Kyriotates, but I haven't met many."

"There was Nikostratos."

"There was Nik. Let's not talk about her."

"There are a great many people you don't want to talk about."

"More than you know." The Habbalite I served first, the Habbalite I served second. Vicious enough that I've never tried my hand at sadism; how could I match up to them? I don't want to talk about the Calabite who couldn't stay Free, or the ethereal who tagged along behind me for more than a year before I told it to shove off. I don't want to talk about Holly, I shouldn't talk about Zhune. If I talk about Anthony, I'll break something, and Tess will break my fingers. There's always Regan. "What can I say? I repress a lot."

"I've noticed," Penny says tartly. He relents from the scowling quickly enough, and he's too much of a Seraph for that to be faked. "Who was the woman at the door?"

"Shedite. The one who hired us for that job." Should I be telling him this? Certainly not. But I don't mind talking about it the way I mind other things, and alcohol is a marvelous excuse for bad judgment calls. "I'm probably going to end up working for it until Zhune is out of Trauma."

"You could not show up, at the appointed time," Penny says. "You have other choices available to you--"

"I said I would show up. Therefore, I will show up." He can't argue with that, and he doesn't. "If I hadn't been convincing about that, it would have dragged me away right then. Or killed me. I don't have any other choices available to me except ones that involve breaking my promises." Katherine's the only one I keep breaking my promises to. I've told her time and again that I'll come back for her, and at least twice I didn't mean it. One of those times I've managed to keep away. No, I'm not reading that letter any time soon.

"Why does it want you back?"

"I had to put the box back together for it." I pick up the cube to spin turn it around in front of my face, not focusing as well on it as I once did. The patterns on the sides look almost like Helltongue when they blur this way, but it's nothing I can read. Either my imagination, or something beyond me. "To pass on to whoever commissioned the theft. If it asks me to take it apart again, I'm going to complain. This box was made to reach a state and _stay_ that way."

"It doesn't seem very dangerous," Penny says. "Not on its own."

"I don't think it is. Which would make sense, wouldn't it? Secrets aren't inherently dangerous. They're dangerous if they stop being secret, or they're dangerous because people who should know don't."

"I wish I knew more about what was inside," Penny says.

"I don't." I set the cube back down. "If I knew, I'd have to do something about the information. So long as I don't know, it's not my problem."

"Ignorance is bliss?"

"A little learning is a dangerous thing. Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring."

"There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again." Penny's as much a man of letters as I always thought. "You would rather know all or nothing?"

"A little knowledge means responsibility I can do nothing with. So what if that ritual inside the box is dangerous? What am I supposed to do with knowing that? Unless I know who got it next, or what they meant to use it for, or how to stop it from being used, it's only one more thing to worry about. Better not to know."

"And yet, you're off to meet this evening with someone who may know more. Someone who means to pass the box off to someone else who almost certainly knows more." Penny lets the statement stand right there, working slowly through his beer. I'm not sure how much he's had to drink, butless than I have. He always sounds like himself, though right now he's as shoeless as I am, possibly in solidarity. Or possibly because sitting around on a couch on a Monday morning drinking beer doesn't lend itself to the formality of shoes.

"It's not my job to investigate this thing, Penny."

"I suppose it's not."

"It's Sean's job. If he wants answers, he can come asking for them. Maybe I'll finally get a chance to settle the score."

"Maybe you will."

"And maybe what's inside isn't anything important, or dangerous."

"There is that possibility."

Only a Seraph can express so much of his own opinion through polite statements of agreement. "You're trying to guilt trip me into doing something about this, aren't you?"

"I can't _make_ you feel guilty about anything, Leo," Penny says, mild and polite. I don't trust that for an instant. My partner's not the only one who can be manipulative through being nice. "You make your own decisions on morality, and what you consider justified or not. As a demon, your sense of right or wrong is inherently subjective. If you feel guilty about an action, it is because you feel it is wrong. I am not a Habbalite to impose my own opinions on you that way."

That was a cheap shot, and I'm not sure he realizes it. "I don't want to talk about this."

"As you'd like."

I'm miserable, and I want my Djinn back. I don't want to work for creepy Shedim who mess with the Game. Since when has what I wanted mattered? Even when I was a Renegade, I spent too much time trying to survive to have any left for doing as I liked. "I don't know how you do it."

"Do what?"

"Trying to make things. It's sort of pointless, isn't it?" I gesture around the room with my beer, not so vigorously as to splash anything. I'd like to keep my kneecaps. "Do you know how much work went into building this place? Appraise and negotiate to buy the land, settle on a design--we won't go into the time required for the actual design--and then you get everything approved, permits issued, construction begins with dozens of people spending weeks and months working on the project just to have the building. Someone has to paint it, carpet it, hang the curtains. There's a tapestry on the wall that someone else spent hours or days weaving. Altogether, this room right here has taken hundreds and thousands of hours of work from hundreds of different people, to build it and furnish it and run the infrastructure so that we can sit here in the air conditioning with our beer. And it would take one seven-year-old with a box of matches and a jug of lighter fluid half an hour to destroy everything. Longer if she wanted to take out the entire building."

"You used to design buildings," Penny says.

"Highly flammable ones, yes." I've finished another beer. Maybe there's more in the kitchen. "It was a long time ago, and it doesn't matter anymore."

"It was less than a decade ago, Leo."

"Long enough. I was a different person then. I'll be a different person ten years from now, if I'm still alive."

He's kind enough not to take the obvious opening. Or maybe smart enough to realize I'd resent it. "If you're still alive in ten years, I'd like to see you again."

"Why plan for anything that far ahead?"

"Ten years isn't that long," Penny says. "Not for--" He stops, and I think he was going to say, "Not for celestials." But demons average shorter lifespans than angels; Archangels seem less likely to disassemble Servitors over mistakes. "Not for me," he finishes. "I've worked on projects that took that long to set in motion, and five times that long to see results. Not all of Trade moves at the speed of the stock market floor."

"The last time I planned for anything long-term, it was choosing a major in college. Which, come to think of it, was about as much of a choice as joining Theft. For a theoretical rebel, I do what I'm told most of the time." I try to drink my beer, except it's still empty. Forgot about that. "Do we have any more of these?"

"No."

"Right. Let's get more."

"If you stop now, you'll be sober by the time you need to meet with the Shedite."

"It's a Shedite. It creeps me out. It wants me to play with the Game to support its Word, I think, whatever its Word is, not that I know. We demons aren't big on trust. I don't think sober would be a plus." I run my finger down the side of the empty bottle, and the glass crumbles beneath my hand. I may not be able to pack the sheer force into my resonance that some Calabim do, but I have better aim than most. "Damn, but I wish Zhune weren't dead. He'd know what to do."

"Would he?"

"Usually does. He's a bastard, but a clever one, and he has all the experience I don't. He gets us the jobs, I figure out how to handle the tricky bits. It ends up working out better than you'd expect. I'd mind it less if everyone didn't treat me like I was his pet, instead of his partner." Definitely full into depression, by this point. I'm not supposed to be talking about Zhune, least of all to Penny. No, least of all to Sean, who can guess a lot of this but shouldn't be allowed to know. I hate working for stupid people, but dealing with intelligent people has its own set of hazards. "He's dangerous, you know."

"Is he?"

"Yes." There's a glittering pile of glass sitting on top of the coffee table, and I don't remember disassembling the bottle. I'll need to clean that up before I leave, or the Cherub will hurt me. There are too many Cherubim out there who have tried to kill me. They take everything so personally. Djinn are much easier to deal with; if there's one thing Zhune won't ever do, it's hurt me. Seriously. Physically. Probably. "People think he's slow and dumb when he wants them to think that. He's better at it than I am at playing idiot Calabite. More practice. You should be careful around him."

"You think he'd try to kill me?"

I fall back on the arm of the couch, laughing. Now there's an image. Zhune deciding to kill _Penny_ , of all the people in the world. Seraph of Trade who's decent with a sniper rifle, but not dangerous beyond that. "No, you idiot. Of course he wouldn't. It wouldn't be _fun_. It wouldn't get him anything. There's no challenge to it, no game. No style. He wants to compromise you, tangle you up in crossed promises until you're eating dissonance or betraying your own side. I told him, it's a stupid idea to go meet with an angel. This will not end well. But he talked me into calling, and showing up. He's _good_ at convincing me to do things. He's a very convincing man."

Penny doesn't say anything at all. Picking the truth out of what I'm saying, maybe more truth than I know, and I wish he'd say something. I can't read what he means when he just looks at me like this.

"He calls me redemption bait," I explain, as nicely as I can, because I do like Penny and I don't want to offend him needlessly. I'm not trying to be rude, here, and maybe I shouldn't have laughed at him. "Try to pay attention to the second word in there, instead of the first. If you keep doing this, sending me cryptic messages and offering favors and _caring_ like this, it's going to cause you trouble. He'll make sure of that. It's just too easy."

"I don't think I like your partner," Penny says. Stiffly. He's retreating right back into Seraphic distance, as well he should.

"Of course you don't. Sometimes I don't like him either." But if Zhune were here right now, he'd bring me another beer and ruffle my hair and kiss me whether I wanted him to or not. He's good at dealing with me when I'm drunk and depressed. Lots of practice, especially in making sure I get to that state to begin with. "It doesn't matter. He's my partner, and I can count on him. That's not easy to come by. He's more reliable than Regan ever was."

"Wasn't Regan the one who got you killed twice?"

"Yes?"

"Damning with faint praise."

"We're demons. We're already damned, whether or not anyone praises us. But it's not that bad."

Penny only raises an eyebrow archly. Fine maneuver, that. I wonder if I could learn how. It wouldn't look as good on me; you need more self-confidence, and a taller vessel, to pull that expression and look good in it.

"Okay, I lie. It is as bad as all that. But so what? That's what I was given, that's what I took, that's what I get. I'll live with it until I slow down enough to not manage the living part anymore."

Poor Penny. I keep presenting him with problems and then snatching them back in the next sentence. I'm not happy, but I'm never going to be. I serve Theft, and I won't try leaving it. I'm a demon, and I mean to stay that way. He puts a hand to the back of his neck, a nearly human gesture, and looks down at me sprawling across the couch. "What do you want from me, Leo?"

"I don't know," I tell him.

"When you answer a question," he says, "there are three parts to your answer. What you say, what you believe, and the actual truth. That wasn't true, you don't believe it, and the actual truth is apparent. Why would you lie to a Seraph?"

"To avoid social awkwardness?"

"It's a bit late for that, isn't it?"

I look over the empty beer bottles on the coffee table. "Probably."

Penny sets his bottle down, half-full still, beside the heap of powdered glass. "You could simply tell the truth."

"Nothing is simple, Penny."

"Because you keep making things more complicated for yourself." He leans over me on the couch, and kisses me. That I was not expecting. Seraphim are not cuddly. "Is it so hard to ask for what you want?"

"Yes." I'd rather be kissing him back, but that was brief, and I'm still not sure he'd be okay with that. I'd rather slouch across this half of the couch with him looking down at me than risk scaring him away. "You need to figure out what you want, and then how you can get it, and whether someone else is likely to help, and if asking for help would cause more problems, and how much help is going to cost--"

"Or you could just ask."

"No. It doesn't work that way."

"Are you sure?"

"Did you know you have nice eyes?"

I'm not really drunk enough to get away with complete non sequiturs, and Penny knows it. "You've mentioned that before."

"Did I?"

"And now you're avoiding my question."

"I am. Would you mind kissing me again?" I have something to add to that, a bad joke about only doing this for research and comparison purposes, but fortunately for both of us he kisses me before I can go on and babble about it. He doesn't kiss at all like Regan, which surprises me more than it should, or much like Zhune, which doesn't surprise me at all. He doesn't move like Zhune either, even when kissing means that he has to rearrange himself mostly on top of me. We're barely touching: if I stretch out my legs on the couch, he rearranges himself around me so that I have plenty of space to move.

And where's the fun in that? I drape my arms over his neck, and contrary to some expectations, he doesn't punch me, or even look annoyed. Good sign.

"See?" His smile's maybe edging towards smug, but I think he's earned that much. I won't hold it against him. I have, if anything, shown myself to be amazingly bad at holding things against Seraphim or Balseraphs, right up to the point where they try to kill me. And even that I only held against Regan when she succeeded. "Sometimes, you only have to ask."

I tug on his shoulders until he consents to settle down on top of me, most of his weight still on his elbows and knees. Weird to think that I could push him off again, with how precariously he's balanced. That's not how it works. "It doesn't count if it's asking for something you've already decided to give out. You're rigging the game."

"Are you objecting?"

"Hell, no. I'm only saying, this doesn't prove anything." Except maybe that the fondness I have for Balseraphs is getting projected. I am so not telling Zhune about this, whenever he gets back. I've kept secrets from him before, with some effort. I can do it again.

It's nothing but kissing, for now. He doesn't object when I mess up his neat haircut in pulling him closer. I'm too much of a mess to worry about anything of the kind, and for once I wish I were sober enough to appreciate this properly. Would I even be doing this, without enough alcohol in my vessel to mess with my brain? Being tied to the corporeal is a funny thing. I'm used to it. People who can come and go from their vessels easily don't understand it the way I do. Or maybe they understand it better, and I'm the one who doesn't get what it really means. I can only know so much about my own limitations when I'm looking out from inside.

He tastes like beer. I must taste the same way. One tooth has a metal filling, two of his back molars have an irregular gap between them. Someone designed his vessel with attention to the details; a too-perfect body can call attention to itself as a fake, but he could pass for human right up close. Now there's a research topic. Never got to study anything that entertaining in college. The mating habits of the corporeally-assigned angel in its native habitat. Or is the Earth never native for angels? I've spent more time on the corporeal than I have in Hell. I don't know what it's like to be more used to the celestial realm, not anymore.

I keep waiting for one of us to say something obvious like "This is a bad idea" or "I shouldn't be doing this." It applies equally well to either of us. The only demons with free reign to get it on with angels are Servitors of Lust, and I can't imagine any Archangel approving of this. Maybe Eli. But Penny's not talking, and I'm not going to start saying something that might change his mind. This'll do just fine where it is.

No knowing where he found a change of clothing, but his shirt's crisp and clean until my hands have been at its collar for a few minutes. My Seraph is looking downright molested, and we're still only kissing, my hands shifting between his shirt and his hair, while he leans forward lightly over me. There's nothing creative to what he's doing: a systematic journey over my face with his mouth, so very polite. Lips and eyes and nose and chin, one place after another. Very orderly. I like it well enough, and he's still not objecting to the way I've hooked my ankles over his calves, or the marks I'm leaving on his neck. I'm not a Djinn to get all possessive over someone, but I can see the appeal.

I work one hand free from where I left it in his hair to start unbuttoning his shirt. Penny shifts his weight, catches my hand. "No, Leo."

"No?"

"No." He kisses me again, short and sweet. "No further than this."

I know the answer to this one. "Why not?"

"Because you're a demon, and I'm an angel. There is..." He sorts out his words, halfway through the sentence. So maybe I've managed to distract him as much as he's distracting me. He can't just be here with me this close and tell me no. It's not _fair_. "There are reasons to go no further. Not only on my account."

I don't want to whine, but I probably sound exactly like I'm whining. "So it's not worth asking?"

"You can ask. But sometimes the answer is no. It's not really asking permission if you always know the answer beforehand, is it?"

Nor is it really asking if you mean to press the issue after an answer's given. I'm not so drunk that I can't follow the thought to its end. Life's full of disappointments. I'll take what I can get, and I'll take what I can get. This is what I can get. "Okay," I say, like there's any choice in that answer. "No more than this. You're a tease, you know that?"

"I didn't mean it that way."

"Yeah, I knew that. I'm just saying it." I wrap my arms around his neck again. "Okay. We're out of beer, it's not quite noon, kissing's close enough to okay that we'll both go that far, and Tess will maim one or both of us if we stain her furniture anyway. I can work with this."

"Good," Penny says.

I'll take what I can get. "Good enough."


	10. In Which I Am Not Permitted To Ignore The Potential Destruction Of Humanity, Despite A Distinct Lack Of Interest In Preventing It Myself

I'm on time, but the Shedite's late. Sunset Essence hit twenty minutes ago, and I'm still playing pinball at the laundromat's arcade section. Fifty cents is too much for a single game; if I weren't still on my first ball, I'd be annoyed. No one else in here but a man in his forties staring bleakly at a dryer. There's a chance that he's the Shedite's current host, but if so, it can come over and say hello. Playing a round of Guess The Host isn't in my job description.

I remember when I had a written job description. My supervisor was sadistic and insane, but for a Servitor of Fire, she had a good grasp of paperwork. It's the little things that you don't appreciate until they're gone. Except for the part where I appreciate it: if it came down to a choice between permanent death or going back to work for my first boss, I'd have to think about it before settling on an answer.

Thinking about Habbalah is never good for me. The first ball slides down to woeful music, and a second ball drops in for its turn, while the game counts up all the bonuses I accumulated. I cannot imagine a more pointless form of entertainment than pinball, except maybe the video buck-hunting game next to this table.

"Good game?" Same host as before, standing right beside me. I'm sufficiently used to Zhune pulling this sort of trick that I don't twitch. Since I saw her last, the host acquired new bruises and a bloody slash in her sweater. I don't want to know.

"Not really." I leave the machine alone. "Ready to go?"

"Uh-uh. We need a car. Unless you have one?"

"If you give me a few minutes..."

She shakes her head, hair bouncing around her. I could almost take her for a Calabite now, with the level of battered she has going on in her wardrobe. It doesn't mesh well with the pink and preppy. "Not a good night for dodging cops. We're on a deadline with a client who doesn't like company. We'll take one that won't be reported stolen." She digs through her pockets, comes out with a pack of cigarettes and a wallet. "Hold onto these."

The transfer doesn't take long. She only walks up to the man in the laundromat, and speaks in a low voice. All her body language says vulnerable, harmless, compliant. A few sentences between the two of them, and she reaches out to touch his hand.

She stands blinking in front of the dryer, hand to her bruised face, while the man saunters back to the arcade section. "Ready now?"

"Sure." I follow him outside, while the girl in the laundromat watches us with terrified eyes. I wonder how far she is from where the Shedite picked her up. "What deadline are we looking at?"

"Half an hour. The place is nearby, so it won't be a problem." Our car turns out to be an ugly blue SUV. He takes the driver's side. I hope he's a better driver than Zhune. "You did get the box put back together, right?"

"Of course." Because I don't know if he is a better driver than my partner, I put on my seatbelt the instant I'm inside. I'd rather be the one at the wheel. Unlike some people, I don't hit anything while driving unless I intend to. I set the box-in-a-bag on the dashboard while he gets us out of the parking lot and onto the road. "Why the big rush?"

"There's some ritual tonight that requires the new moon." The Shedite sneers, same expression of disdain as the girl wore in the diner when looking over me the first time. "Sorcery. I wouldn't touch that stuff. It gives humans the wrong ideas about what they can get away with."

"Is the box required for the ritual?"

"How should I know?" He frowns over at me. "I got the impression it's an amplifier or symbolic, not a necessary component. Why do you care?"

"Just curious." It can't tell if I'm speaking the truth. Still, lying right off--as opposed to implying the wrong thing, and letting it drawn its own conclusions--may be a bad start to an unpleasant extended relationship. "I picked up some more information on what was inside."

"Uh-huh. Were you intending to share?" He hasn't clipped any parked cars yet. Apparently not all Servitors of Theft drive badly. "The job doesn't include an agreement not to tell anyone _else_ about what he has, if the information is worth selling."

"Some sorcery ritual. The box is supposed to come from a lost Demon Prince of Secrets that I never heard of before now--"

"Gebbeleth?"

It figures that he'd know more than I would. "That's the one. And the ritual's supposed to be connected to Makatiel in some way."

"Uh-huh." The Shedite turns to look at me, no matter that he's on a highway onramp. "Makatiel. Demon Prince of Disease. Had you heard of that one before?"

"Vaguely. The Game and Judgment teamed up to kill him off, right?" We're sliding across the traffic lanes in a highly unsafe manner. "Could you watch the road--"

A chorus of car horns rises up around as us traffic begins dodging out of our way. Not that the demon driving is paying any attention. "You're telling me I sold an artifact of the fucking lunatic Demon Prince of Disease to _Death_?"

I grab the wheel since he doesn't seem interested in keeping us from crashing into the concrete barrier. "We're going to hit--"

"Disease! Death! Are you _insane_?" He shoves me back in my seat, yanks the steering wheel back to the right. We skid across three lanes and off to the shoulder, brakes screeching all the way. "Am I insane? Don't answer that. Fuck. I should have known." He slams a fist into the steering wheel. "When did you find out? Why didn't you tell me sooner?"

"Last night." Before we talked, but I'm not going to mention that. "Because I didn't know it was a problem. Or that you were selling it to Death. I don't ask after the details."

"Not knowing is safer. Except for when it's not. Fuck." He sets one hand on his knee, staring down at it, and clenches fingernails into his palm until blood starts dribbling out. This is not someone I want work for. "I thought you were smart."

"There's only so much I can do without the background knowledge. What's the problem, here?" I can guess, but I'd rather pretend this is me not knowing, not me failing to disclose relevant information.

"You've heard of the Black Plague, right? Tell me you have that much of an education."

"Mandatory history class in college, yes. But it didn't cover the history of the War."

"Uh-huh. Figures." The Shedite paints Helltongue curses across the dashboard in blood. "Makatiel. Demon Prince of Disease. Got stabbed by Judgment and the Game in concert. Not because he was such a rebel they couldn't handle it, but because he was doing his level best to eradicate humanity."

"And we're...opposed to this happening again?"

"You _think_?"

"How should I know?" If Zhune was deferential to the Shedite, I should be more so, but I'm not in the mood. "I'm on my third Prince in less than a decade. At this point, I've lost track of who's for or against wide scale death and destruction."

"When Zhune gets out of Trauma, I may well kill him again myself," the Shedite says conversationally. This is creepier than the shouting. "You should know this much. Yes, we disapprove of humanity dying off. You can only steal someone's life once. If we lose humanity, the last battle kicks in, and everything turns to shit."

"Okay, I get it."

"Do you? Some ritual from Makatiel's bad enough. If it was hidden inside an artifact created by Gebbeleth, there must have been a reason. This is serious." He unlocks the doors, and swings out. "Come on. I'm not about to explain this by myself."

He can't possibly mean what he's implying. "So we go to the place where we hand over the box, shoot the friendly demon of Death you sold the ritual to, and call it a night." I get out of the car before he gets impatient and drags me out. "It sounds like a reasonable plan to me." It sounds like a plan with half a dozen holes in it, but I'm hoping he won't think of them.

"Uh-huh. Unless he's already passed the ritual on to someone else. Or taught it to someone else. Or doesn't have it on him, and we can't find it. Cat's out of the bag, Leo. Torching the bag won't kill the cat." As metaphors go, not the most graceful one, but we're both under some stress. He pulls himself over the concrete wall dividing the highway from dark undergrowth and trees. "Some problems, we handle ourselves. Some problems are too fucking big to not check in about first. You should _know_ this."

Talking to Princes is never a good idea. Same goes for Archangels, most anyone with a fancy title, important Wordbound... The last I'm stuck with. I suppose it's better to keep the immediate threat happy, even if it could mean making someone more powerful angrier still. Maybe Valefor will be in a good mood.

And maybe the Archangel of Judgment will stop by to ask after my health. Which might be the only way this night could get worse.

The Shedite stalks through the trees until we break out into a clear area. "Wallet." He swipes it out of my hand the instant it's offered. "Don't say anything unless someone talks to you first, okay? Can you do that much? Yeah, you can manage that. Fucking Djinn who can't even babysit competently. I never should've outsourced."

Usually, we're good. This time I can't object to the criticism. Zhune botched the subtlety aspect, badly enough to draw War's attention. And once War was looking, Sean found me. I'd look into putting Sean into Trauma if I thought it would stop him; I thought Malakim were supposed to be the Energizer bunnies of the Host, but he keeps catching up with me. Probably has whatever he's using to track me stowed somewhere safe with another person who can pick up where he left off, though putting him into Trauma would be satisfying on its own merits.

It's a pity Zhune's in Trauma. He's a large and obvious person to stand behind if anyone's going to get angry in my direction.

The Shedite pulls cash out of the wallet, fans it out in his hand. "Don't say _anything_ , okay? You got that?"

"Uh-huh." I have a harmless wide-eyed blink to respond to his glare. "Not a word." I'd be inclined to let him do the talking anyway; I don't know my Prince's moods or policies well enough to feel safe presenting my case. What I need is my partner to do the talking for me. Time to find out how badly the Shedite means to sell me out.

Between one moment and the next, in two waves of disturbance from Essence rushing out and a Prince stepping into this part of the world, the bills in the Shedite's hand disappear. Of course we wouldn't see them being taken. Our Prince appears much like he did the last time I saw him: charming, dangerous, like he just finished punching someone in the face a few times. The vessel he's using this time around looks the same as then. Maybe less amused. I have a hard time thinking straight when Superiors show up.

"There's a problem?" Valefor's talking to the Shedite, not me, and I'm all the happier for it. "Or did you just want to chat? Because I'm busy, sweetheart."

"We've found ancient artifacts of dead Princes," says the Shedite, deference oozing from every word. "Makatiel and Gebbeleth. A sorcerous ritual inside a box--"

"And yet, you're not handing them over." I'm getting the impression that our Prince is not in the mood for long conversations. "Cut to the chase."

The man's tongue flickers between his lips. More like a lizard than a human. "The ritual from Makatiel is in the hands of a Servitor of Death. Who means to use it tonight. I don't know how far he may have passed on the information, he has human and undead servants, but as soon as I found out--"

"I get the picture," says our Prince. The Shedite has enough sense to shut up. "End of the world as we know it, same old, same old. Now here's what you're going to do." Valefor points at the Shedite with a lit cigarette that wasn't there before. "Go straight back to Hell, do not pass Go, do _not_ collect two hundred dollars, and get your slimy self to the soul yards. You will find every single damned soul that appears there with knowledge about this ritual, and you will bring them back to me before anyone else has a chance to debrief them. Get the picture?"

The Shedite nods, wide-eyed. I wonder if it'll get a list to check off as it collects souls, or have to work out when everyone's arrived. And then there are all the souls who will disband rather than showing up... Not a job I'd want.

"Then get _moving_."

The Shedite bolts. I would do the same. The problem is, I don't think that order covered me.

And sure enough, my terrifying Prince who would get all manner of fancy titles if he had the inclination and I knew any of them, turns to look at me. "How did you find out what it was, kid?"

"A Mercurian of War tried to recover the box, and what was inside." I could stop there. Maybe I should. But I haven't made a habit of telling my Prince partial truths, and I'm not about to start now. "...and the Seraph of Trade confirmed that it was true. That it came from Makatiel, though the end of the world part is only hypothesis."

"Is that so." He flicks embers off the end of his cigarette, and then grins at me. This does not make me feel better. "You keep odd friends. So long as it continues to be useful, why should I care? But what I want to know, kid, is why you didn't tell me as soon as you found out."

Good question. I was sort of hoping it wouldn't come up. "I didn't know you'd care."

Valefor sighs, and looks up to the sky. "Doesn't know I'd care," he says, to I don't know who. It's all for dramatic effect, but I'm not the right audience. "Look," he says, and throws an arm over my shoulder. "I realize you've been working for the sort of people who want to set the world on fire in a literal sense. Old habits die hard. But it's time to get with the program, Leo. So let's make this perfectly clear. This world? I keep some of my stuff here. I want it to stick around until I'm done with it. So when you find out that someone is trying to wipe out humanity, and you can't fix it yourself right then and there..." He tilts his head down to whisper into my ear. "You tell me about it."

"Right," I say. Stupid response. It's like my brain stops working in self-defense when a Superior gets too close. Nobody likes a chatty Calabite.

"Good," he says, and gives me some breathing room. Considerate of him, and Princes are never considerate except to suit their own whims. He taps ash from his cigarette that he's not actually smoking. (Wait. Isn't that my move? Is that habit more widespread than I thought, or does my Prince steal habits, too?) "Here's what you get to do tonight. Meet up with Death to hand over the box. Find out where he's keeping that scrip with the ritual. Keep him from succeeding, kill anyone involved in the ritual, and you make _sure_ he ends up dead. Soul death would be a nice perk." He looks back over his shoulder at me. "You can call up those angels for support if you want. Why not use them, if they're willing to be taken advantage of? And get me that parchment. If you can't get away with it, destroy it. If you can't even manage _that_ , you let the angels have it. Better them than Death."

So all I have to do is track down and steal back an artifact the Shedite sold, take on and wipe out a demon of Death along with all his servants, and save the world. As assignments go, it's straightforward.

I think I'm going to need backup.

My Prince tosses me a set of keys. On inspection, for the SUV parked on the shoulder. He's being too nice tonight, and maybe it's to make up for the part where he's giving me a near impossible task. Not entirely impossible, or I'd be thinking about running right back to Penny and asking for--I don't know what. Better not to think about it. It's a job I'll manage, like I've managed every job before this except for the ones that killed me. Another bout of Trauma would solve some of my problems, though not enough of them to be a tempting out.

"Go on, then," he says. Almost pleasantly. "You have a job to do. Get creative." I suppose he can be charming if he feels like it, even if it's wasted on someone like me.

I get going. Driving directions are writing themselves into my head--I hate that method of passing around information, but I suppose it's less potentially incriminating than writing it down on paper--and I have at least half an hour more of driving before I can pass this box off and start plotting murder.

No one bothered to tell me the name or Band of the Death Servitor, but it's easy to pick him out at the rendezvous. Who else would be standing in front of a school gymnasium after sunset in the summer, checking his watch repeatedly? He wears an expensive black suit, black shirt, black tie. A businessman trying to play at being goth. "About _time_ ," he says, before I've even stepped out of the car. "Do you have it?"

"Uh-huh." I hold up the cube, not letting it go quite yet. "What's so important about this, anyway? What you wanted was inside."

"It's none of your business. I've already paid you." He grabs at the box, so I let him take it. Keeping a component away from him might stop the ritual tonight--or it might not, if it's not truly necessary--but I need him to pull together all his minions into one convenient place for disposal. The longer I wait, the greater chance of him spreading the ritual around, and then we'd never stomp it out.

"Only curious," I say, not trying for a Shedite smile. I don't know that one well enough to emulate it, and he probably doesn't know it well enough either to appreciate the attempt. "Is that everything, this time?"

"Everything. You should go." He draws himself up straighter, trying to tower over me, but even at his height he can't look impressive. No Balseraph, then; one of those would have enough arrogance to do it. "It would be wise for you to leave this place, before midnight. Powerful forces will be at work."

"Uh-huh. Have fun, then."

I have a credit card with an unknown limit, an ugly SUV that I will be happy to torch at the first opportunity, and the phone number of a Seraph of Trade. As resources go, these would be more useful if I had three days and a large city rather than about four hours to midnight and a small town that's mostly closed. Fortunately, it's a small town that still has a pay phone near a bus stop.

I get the voice mail again. "Penny? It's urgent. Call me back?" I hang up, and check my watch. Closer to three hours. The only place I've seen open so far is the gas station convenience store, and it's not worth driving away to look for better. Limited resources. What I'd do for a local weapons dealer or a trunk full of explosives, right now.

The pay phone rings within the minute. "Penny?"

"What's the matter?" He actually sounds concerned. He probably is. I should have spent more effort on warning him away from me. Zhune's going to drag my Seraph through Hell once he's back out of Trauma, and the best I'll be able to do is make sure that's not literal.

"Do you have any contact information for Sean? I have a lead for him, but this is time critical."

"I can patch you straight to the number I have for him. What is it?"

"It's complicated."

"Ah," says Penny. I don't know what truth he got out of that. Less than the full truth, I hope. And then the phone's ringing again to someone else's line.

"Yo. What's up?" Sean sounds like the college student he looks like. Even over the phone, I want to smack him.

"Sean? It's me."

"Leo? That's...unexpected." His bright and friendly doesn't cover the wariness. "To what do I owe the honor of--"

"Shut up and listen." I lean against the wall beside the phone booth, watching the quiet street. Dead quiet town, and if I don't get moving, the place will be just plain dead. "I picked up a lead on what you want. If you're interested in getting it back before things turn messy, show up here before midnight. The sooner the better."

"Where's here, Leo?"

"You know how to find me. So find me again." I hang up before he can argue about it. If I get the help, I get the help. If I don't, I'll manage somehow. In the meantime, I have shopping to do.

Inside the convenience store, the clerk stares up blearily as I walk in. "Need any help?" he asks. Staring at my chest rather than my face. I hate this vessel.

"Sure," I say, and smile at him. "Do you carry any lighter fluid?"


	11. In Which Once Again I Have To Do Everything Myself

It's half an hour to midnight when Sean appears. I was about to give up on him and do this all without any help. He stalks through the trees behind the back fence of the school, all righteous indignation and arrogance. "What's so secret you couldn't tell me over the phone?"

"This way." The fence is easy enough to make it over that it can't provide a barrier to any determined high school student trying to skip classes. I wait on the other side for Sean to catch up. "How's it going?"

"Just peachy. I'm only trying to keep the world from ending while everyone else declares it not their concern."

"Always with the hyperbole. As I understand it, it would only be the end of humanity." I grin at him toothily in the darkness. "You're so convinced this lost artifact is dangerous, and you're still stuck doing the recovery job yourself?"

"You think I should bring backup for this, while you waste my time?" He's suitably unimpressed that I think he's telling the truth. No backup, which is...both good and bad, depending. I wasn't sure if I was hoping for him to bring more people or not, and I'm still not sure. But one grumpy Mercurian is what I have to work with, so that's what I work with. "If you have nothing useful to say--"

"What you're looking for is in there." I point at the gym; even in the dark, he should be able to tell what direction I mean. "There's a demon of Death--I'm not sure which type, but it doesn't matter at this point--with a whole pack of mortals, making preparations to use the ritual. They stopped going inside about an hour ago. I counted twenty-six of them, but there could have been more inside before I started the count. The ritual climaxes at midnight. I didn't think to ask if they were using Daylight Savings time or not, but it's safer to assume they are. This gives us about twenty minutes to stop the ritual, kill the demon in charge, and get the artifact back so that no one runs off with it to try again. Are you armed?"

The silence from the angel beside me might be qualified as ominous. "You did _not_ tell me that your lead was...was this!"

"If I had, would you have brought backup?"

"Of course."

"The more of your friends show up, the greater my chance of dying before the night's out." I could go for a cigarette right now to burn off some tension, but I don't want to risk being seen by a lookout. "Though one wouldn't have been a bad idea. I'd guess that everyone in there besides the one demon is human, which might be a problem for you."

"You think so?" Sean takes a deep breath, backing away from the snarl I can hear building in his voice. "Why did you even call me in? I thought you didn't care."

"I don't. Other people do. Consequently, here I am." I'm just as glad there's no Seraph here to start unpacking what I'm telling Sean. "But I can't get in there, grab that ritual scroll--assuming it's even in there, and I hope it is--and get back out again without ending up dead. Too many people. And I don't have a sniper rifle on me, or the address of an arms merchant in town. So I repeat, are you armed? You work for War. You must have _some_ sort of firearm on you."

I think he might hit me, if he didn't need my help right now. "You called me here to borrow a gun?"

"Actually, I was hoping that you'd do the shooting. Your aim is better." I take a shadowy route towards the gym; I had plenty of time to map this out, along with plans for what I'd do if Sean didn't show. Nothing likely to keep me out of Trauma. He proves as good at stealth as I'd expected, silent as he follows me.

"Do you have an actual plan?" Sean asks, voice lower as we come nearer to the door. "Or are we just running in with guns blazing?"

"Of course I have a plan." Though I'm not making promises about its quality. There's only so much I can do on short notice and scanty resources. "We head in through that door. I'll handle any guard there, since you can't. Find where they're doing the ritual--in the center of the gym, I'd expect--and I'll point out the demon. You shoot the demon. This should distract the others. I'll walk in and grab the scroll, and anything else that looks vital to the success of the ritual."

"Then what? That's your whole plan? Walk in, shoot the demon, walk out?"

I bite off a sigh. "And then we block the doors, call the cops, and let a lot of people explain why they're standing around in the high school gym wearing black robes and chanting over dead goats. The ritual's supposed to take place at the new moon. We stop the ritual tonight, send the demon into Trauma, swipe the artifact back. After that, I figure Heaven can handle cleanup. Do you need me to do everything?"

"You're making free use of Heaven's resources, for a demon."

"You're the one who's so concerned about keeping humanity alive. We're spending too much time talking about this. If you don't want to help, at least lend me a gun."

He hands me a gun. No doubt one of many on him; I'd be disappointed to find a Servitor of War only had one. "What if the Samingan is a Shedite, Leo?"

I tuck the gun into the waistband of my jeans. It's a tight fit; Zhune bought me these pants. The Djinn has straightforward tastes in some areas. "Then you'll have to find out the hard way, won't you?"

I figure he has a one in four chance of being unlucky, given the propensity of Samingans towards their Prince's Band. But that's a risk I'm willing to make him take. Where's the fun in leading a Mercurian through a room full of Hellsworn if there's not a decent chance of him incurring dissonance along the way?

The gym door on this side turns out to be locked, but not for long; this resonance of mine comes in useful. Sean hovers behind me, staring up at the windows above us. He's not Zhune, but absent anyone better to watch my back, he'll do.

No lights on in the hall inside. The place has that high school gym scent, sweat and chalk and industrial-strength cleaning solutions. Sean pulls the door shut behind us; it's quieter now that the latch is gone. I wait for a moment to let my eyes adjust to the darkness inside. Low chanting filters out from another part of the gym. How classic. Death has always been the traditional sort, though I can't imagine where they find the black robes for these ceremonies.

Sean steps in front of me in the hallway. Sure enough, there's the glint of another gun in his hand as he slides along the wall. War Servitors get small unit tactics training, I get six months in Gehenna trying not to have my head taken off by snipers in war games. Sometimes angels do get all the luck. At the end of the hall, he checks around the corner, pulls back. I can barely make out the one finger he raises.

One human's not much of a problem, even for me. I step quietly over to where Sean's waiting, and check around the corner in the direction he indicates. One man, average height, overweight, obligatory black robe. I catch a glimpse of beard in the dim light coming from under a door down that hall, when he turns to look in our direction. Not the demon, though I wouldn't have expected the Samingan to spend his moment of triumph patrolling for intruders.

The chanting's louder from this angle. No one inside should hear small noises out here, but they'd probably notice shouting. So I can't let the man have time to shout.

The man in the hallway is still turned in our direction. We weren't as quiet coming in the door as I thought, or we let in a breeze he caught. Whatever the reason, he walks away from the door he's been guarding, towards the corner in the hallway.

I'm so close to Sean I can feel him tense as the human approaches, breath quieting further. He can't do anything about this man.

But I can. The mortal's clueless enough and blind enough to walk right past us. He flicks on a flashlight, sweeping it over the door we came through. A close look would show him the way the latch has crumbled to pieces. I'm not about to give him the chance. I step away from the wall, follow right up behind the man's back, and--well, this vessel's not the right height for this, not at all, so I have to do an annoying little jump to get up and my arm wrapped around the man's mouth before he can shout. The flashlight clatters to the floor, light right in my eyes, but it's not like I'm aiming at something I need to see. One arm wrapped around his mouth, his damp breath on my forearm, and my other hand right on his throat.

Humans are amazingly fragile, when you get up close and personal. My resonance can cut through metal, and flesh is only more difficult to break if the person it belongs to is any good at fighting back. This man isn't. My hand slides right through larynx and throat, hits the jugular, hits bone at the back of his neck and I think that's enough. No disturbance from that, not when it was all my resonance. There are some advantages to having a background in Fire, and I've wondered how much of my continued lack of dying is because my Prince finds a demon with that attunement handy now and again.

I pull away while the mortal's tumbling to the floor, getting blood all over my hands and arms. I should've worn a jacket; that way I'd be able to take the blood off me later, instead of dripping it everywhere.

Sean stands beside me. He must have left the wall while I was grappling the mortal down. "Nice trick," he says, and I can't tell what emotion's behind that. Being a Mercurian of War must be even stranger than being an Impudite of the War: they both see an awful lot of humans die around them in support of the Word they serve.

"It comes in handy." I wipe my hands off on my pants, trying to get dry enough that I'll be able to fire a gun without it slipping right out of my hands. The price for murder is a constantly changing wardrobe. "Do you have the time?"

His watch sprouts a bright green light. "Eleven to midnight."

"Then there's no time for sneaking around looking for the best door in. We'll have to take the one down the next hall." I pull my gun back out. Just in case. "The man you want is just under six feet tall, athletic build, pale skin. Black hair cut short, no facial hair. He may still be wearing a black business suit, even when everyone else is in robes. He _will_ stand out from the crowd in some way, because he's that sort of guy. Once you're sure he's down, run for it, and block the door behind you. The bench against the wall outside is heavy, but you should be able to move it."

"Since when are you in charge of this operation?"

"Since we're on a time limit and you _can't hurt_ anyone else inside." I meet his glare. "I don't have time to argue. We need that demon _dead_ before he can escape back to Hell, and a distraction so I can break up the ritual proper and get the scroll back."

"Fine," says Sean, and I know I'll be hearing about this later. With Sean, hearing about it might involve the basement of a War Tether and sharp objects. He's a man who knows how to make a point. "If I'm running out and blocking the door, how are _you_ getting out?"

"Calabite. Of. Theft. Remember? If I do this right, I'll be a step ahead of you on the way out. You'd better not take too long to follow."

He stares at me for two long breaths. He knows I'm hiding something, keeping some part of the plan away from him. (He's right. There's a reason I didn't ask Penny to show.) But he doesn't know what. If I've set this up right, his first guess should be that I intend to run off with the artifact, resell it to another bidder, leave him to handle the mess. Since he knows he can find me again later--

"Right," he says. "Make sure you stop the ritual. They probably don't need the artifact to complete it."

"I know, I know." I offer up a charming smile for him that will only make him more suspicious. It's not unlike a magician making sure everyone watches the wrong hand during the card trick. "After you."

He pauses for a moment in front of the door, staring at it like he can see through to the other side. Whatever he thinks of the plan, he doesn't feel like sharing it with me. "Don't screw up," he says.

I wasn't planning on it. Direct orders from a Prince motivate me towards success.

Sean yanks the door open, ducks and rolls inside in a neat motion that any SWAT officer would admire. I catch the door before it can swing closed behind him. The first gunshot snaps through the chanting; I pull Ethereal Form around me, enough Essence rattling that anyone Aware here will catch the disturbance. But I think they're too distracted by the angry Mercurian with a gun to start looking for the source of the Song.

The main room's a basketball court, bleachers folded up against the wall, covered stage at the far end. Overly dramatic candelabras light the place, flickering wildly in the gust of air from the door bursting open and everyone inside flailing about. They've drawn symbols on the hardwood floor in blood, and four corpses lie in the center, limbs arranged neatly in a way that says Sean's not responsible for those. A quick estimate puts the total living population of the room at thirty, all but one of them in dark robes. The man in a business suit who's propped on one knee, bleeding and shouting, that would be the demon.

He's shouting something about continuing the ritual, revenge, the usual Death babble you expect in a situation like this. I dodge around chanting mortals and shrieking mortals who are not staying focused on the goal now that they're being shot at, step by step towards the items laid out inside the circle of corpses. More of a square, technically; they're arranged in straight lines.

I don't have time to pay attention to how Sean's handling the demon. There are too many flailing elbows to duck around, blood on the floor to not slip on. Under the obligatory cowls, oozing lesions have sprouted on the faces of the humans nearer the center. I'm pretty sure that's not a good sign.

A Song rattles behind me, and I don't think that was Sean. No time to check. The corpse circle holds paraphernalia I can't identify: a shallow glass bowl etched with Helltongue, cut branches, colored sand, more blood. I can't imagine how they were going to get the smell out of this place when they were done. Maybe they didn't think that far. I sweep my resonance across all of it, breaking glass and scattering wood splinters.

"You _can't_." Helltongue, so it must be the Samingan. He's crawling across the floor towards me. I don't see the Mercurian anywhere, but I'd guess that mob of robed humans has something to do with that. "I won't let you stop me." So he's seen through the Song, or guessed my location from where ritual items are breaking.

It doesn't matter which. I pull out the gun, and shoot him in the head. Or at least that's the idea: my aim's lousy with pistols, even at this range, and the bullet hits his arm instead. That slows him enough for me to kick him in the face, pin him down with one foot, shoot him in the face from so close I end up with brain splatter across my chest.

A quick search of his jacket--and it has to be quick, because someone's going to step on me in all this flailing about and half-hearted attempts to resume chanting if I don't make it snappy--gets me a wallet, a puzzle box, and finally a thin metal case with the scroll inside. Perfect.

One of the mortals has acquired enough sense to run for the door. I shoot him--no, her, as the slump to the floor reveals--and at that, a few others who were moving in that direction reconsider. They can't tell where the shots are coming from. Time to get out of here and hit the next phase of the plan. The disturbance from one death is noisy, and it's only going to get louder.

The easiest thing to do at this point would be to leave Sean right where he is, get out, and bar the doors. After that--well, everything after that I already have set up. The only snag is that leaving Sean here feels like a cheap form of revenge. I'm petty, but this isn't even petty; it's sort of pathetic. And I have this itchy feeling that Penny would disapprove.

That Seraph's going to be the death of me. I toss enough Essence into Thunder that every mortal in the room drops to the ground, undead or Soldiers or ordinary humans I couldn't say. Handy Song, and it's set off a car alarm in the parking lot. Good thing my Prince didn't ask for subtle.

I drag Sean out from under the pile of humans. "Are you trying to get yourself killed?"

"Oh, you try self-defense when you can't hit back," he snaps, and staggers towards the door. "Did you get--"

"Yes. Go."

Just outside the door, there's a locked utility closet. I dissolve the door wholesale, and find a broom to wedge through the handle of the door. As Sean's too busy slumping against a wall and bleeding to notice, I also take the opportunity to resonate every large container of chemicals in sight.

No more chanting, but a great deal of shouting has risen up inside the basketball court. "That won't hold them for long," Sean says.

"So we'd better get outside." I have to lend him a shoulder to lean on; he's having trouble walking in a straight line. The green light on his watch flickers. 11:56. "Nice job on the distraction."

"I am going to hurt you." We make it outside, and there's hammering at the door behind us. They'll make it through soon, even with mob panic and encroaching disease to distract them. "Just as soon as I can stand up straight."

"Shut up and help me move this bench."

He mostly helps by slumping against the appropriate end, but between the two of us we move the bench in front of the door. It's not bolted to the ground, but someone was putting thought into keeping kids from running off with it on a whim.

Sean staggers a few feet away once the bench is in place, staring up at the building. "The other doors--"

"Are already blocked." I leave Sean lying on the ground while I head into the utilities shed against the side of the gym. The wiring's done; it's just a matter of flipping switches, turning a few valves. Like a padlock's going to stop me? The process doesn't take more than a few minutes.

Sean's pulled himself up to sit on the concrete of the school yard by the time I get back. "Midnight," he says, checking his watch. "Think we pulled it off?"

"Nearly." All the windows of the building are on this side, narrow high rectangles a kid couldn't fit through, for the classrooms that line this wall of the gymnasium. I already took the time to put holes in those and set everything up.

"Oh. Right." He digs a cell phone out of his pocket. Sean's acquired a coating of blood too. "We need to get out of here before the police arrive."

I pull out a lighter, and a pack of cigarettes. "Do you smoke?"

He pauses, phone open. "No. Why?"

"Though I'd check first." I light myself a cigarette, lock the lighter flame on, and toss it into the grass beside the door we just blocked.

This is the part I find beautiful: the trail of kerosene and lighter fluid catching bright and cheerful in the night, spreading around the base of the entire building, running up the walls into the classrooms and the ventilation shafts. The sprinklers don't have any water pressure, the fire alarms have been cut off, and there's accelerant everywhere. Wiring every fuse in the place to pump out 220 was unnecessary, but if anyone tries to turn on a light to find a way out, bulbs will explode and drop glass across the floor. Swapping out the live wires with the ground ones should provide additional heat from wires roasting inside the walls.

Sean says something, but it's only a sharp musical note. I think I've just heard someone curse in Angelic.

"It'll probably take a minute or so for the gas cans I set up to start going off," I explain, and take a seat beside him on the grass. His phone crumbles in his hand, and he doesn't even notice. I don't want fire trucks arriving before this fire's had a chance to catch on. "Should be entertaining."

"Strange definition of entertainment."

"I am a demon, you know." I can hear the SUV parked in front of the doors on the far side of the building catch fire. The gas tank should go up in a spectacular manner once the fumes inside heat up sufficiently, as long as my gas cap replacement doesn't blow early. "Look on the bright side, Sean. You're not an Impudite, so you don't have to care about humans dying, so long as you're not the one killing them. And you're not inside."

He chokes out a laugh. "No, I'm not. Why did you pull me out?"

"If I'd left you in there to your own devices, you might have done something inconvenient and screwed up the whole plan."

"Which included burning everyone inside alive...all along, didn't it?"

"Actually, I'm counting on them to drop from smoke exhalation first. More reliable. The fire's to provide the smoke, and to make sure any virus they released is killed by the heat. I don't know if you saw, but people in there were showing signs of disease." I have a beautiful fire to watch, a cigarette burning down between my fingers, and a list of to-do items checked off. The evening's taken a turn for the better. The flames move from eating the accelerants to catching on the structure of the gym, and that bang was probably the first of the gas cans going off. "Why are you so surprised? Did you think I'd leave knowledge this dangerous down to your attempts at cleanup? One sorcerer with a good memory, one letter from jail to an old friend, and we get the plague breaking out in another part of the world with no warning."

"I thought you didn't care about the disease," Sean says. "That you were only in this to get back those artifacts."

"I'm doing what I was told."

"Only following orders," Sean says. "How appropriate."

"Oh, don't go all Nazi parallel on me. Everyone in there deserved this end, and worse." I stand up, tired of the conversation. A little thanks for dragging him out would have been nice. "You might want to go now." I toss the gun back to him, bloodier than when I got it. I need a shower, a clean room to hide in for a while. I want to keep watching the fire. If I'd had another three days to plan this and Zhune's help, I could've done this without disturbance, and with complete confidence that the roof would cave in at the right moment. As is, I'd better keep an eye on things until I'm sure no one makes it through smoke and fire and barricades to run for freedom.

"You think you can just use me and then--"

"Yes, I do. Because you have more important things to worry about than this stupid game between us, and so do I." I get out what I pulled from the demon's pockets, and throw him the wallet. "He had a Role. He might have kept notes. You have the resources to make sure someone goes through his house and pulls anything dangerous before the wrong people find it. I don't. Go make yourself useful to the cause of Heaven."

He can stand up, so it looks like I don't have to drag him off the field and over the fence myself. That would get awkward. More bangs from the gym. I was only able to set up six fume-filled cans of gasoline, and it sounds like four of them have now exploded. Not a bad percentage. "I want the scroll," he says. "Theft sold it to Death once. I don't have any guarantee that you wouldn't do it again."

"Sometimes we don't get what we want, Sean." All the windows are bright with flames. If I were still serving my first Prince, he'd be proud of the outcome, if maybe less thrilled about the part where I stopped Death. It's just as well that I'm not working for Fire anymore. This makes a great occasional diversion, but it's too dangerous to do for a living.

He points the gun I threw straight at me. Ungrateful bastard. "Then let me rephrase. Give me that ritual before I take out a lot of repressed anger on you right now."

The gun makes an odd sound when the insides shred. "Nice try, but do remember the whole _Calabite_ part, okay?"

He drops the broken thing in disgust. You'd think he would learn, after all this time. "I can still take you."

"You need to learn how to control your temper." I take the parchment out of the metal case, unfold it in front of him. "This is what you want?"

It's not indestructible after all. The scroll crumbles as easily as paper, dust disappearing into the wind.

He frowns at me. Bloody and bruised face, lit by a burning building. He'll never thank me for what I did. If he showed some gratitude once in a while, I might like him more. "You'd rather destroy it than let me have it?"

"What do I get from giving it away? You owe me, Sean, for pulling you out of there, for helping you stop this, for not shooting you in the back myself when I had the chance, and you don't care. I don't see any reason to keep doing favors when you're never going to pay me back."

"You don't trust War to keep that?"

I could laugh. "Like biological warfare doesn't fall under your master's Word. Like you wouldn't use it yourself, if you decided the circumstances were dire enough to justify it. No, I don't think so. You were the one who taught me I can't trust angels to keep their promises. So you should understand why I'm not inclined to trust in your good intentions when it comes to power."

"At some point," Sean says, and I can tell he's making an effort to keep his voice level, "we're going to talk about this. Some other day."

"Probably." A siren squeals in the distance; someone's noticed the fire, and called it in. "You should go, now."

"Why, so that you can run a story by the police without me interfering?"

"You think I'm going to get anywhere near the police, covered in blood like this?" I drop the remains of my cigarette on the ground. "No, I'm telling you that you should go because someone else will be showing up for a progress report soon. Someone you might not want to meet in person."

"Fine," he says. The venom carried in that word impresses me. "Catch you later."

"Not if I spot you first." I smile at him, and his return smile is more of a bloody grimace. I must be a sight myself under this gore.

I don't retreat to a safer spot in the trees until I've seen him run.

The fire roars high enough that I'm sure no one's coming out of that one alive. A few minutes of searching turns up a park bench on a hill near the school, where I can sit and watch the flames and flashing lights from a safe distance. I've seen the aftermath of a half dozen fires that took down buildings, three dozen that only did damage, if I don't count anything from the eternal fires of my first home. This one's dull for being a single-story building without much of a structure to collapse, and entertaining for the periodic explosions. Even from here I can make out the shape of the SUV blazing at the door of the gym.

When I'm not alone anymore, it's not exactly a shock. My Prince sprawls with all the elegance I can't hope to ever have, arms stretched along the back of the bench. "Getting back to your roots?"

My mouth's gone dry. It was such a lovely night, up until now. "It seemed like an efficient way of dealing with the problem."

"If a loud one. They'll be hearing this one all the way to Topeka."

That doesn't sound like a rebuke, but I can't tell. I need Zhune here to play interpreter and target for me. "I was hoping to come up with a quiet way to take out thirty humans at once, but nothing sprang to mind." Nothing I could pull off by myself in one evening. Give me the resources and time to do something impressive, and I could...well, get a lot more Princely attention than I want. Never mind.

"Are they all dead?" Finally to the point. I'm better with direct questions than implied ones.

"The demon's in Trauma. The humans are dead by now. The ritual text has been destroyed, and I threw the angels a lead on the Samingan's Role so that they can hunt out any clues he might have left behind."

"Good kid," says my Prince, and ruffles my hair, exactly the way Zhune does. I manage not to twitch. "Using their resources is more fun than wasting my own." He surveys the flaming wreckage with a critical gaze. Valefor's another Calabite, so of course he's seen this sort of thing before. Probably set the odd building on fire himself now and then, over the course of centuries. "Not an unqualified success, but I'll call it close enough. I would've liked it better if you'd come away from this with something for me."

"The angel...objected." That sounds too much like an excuse, but it also reminds me of what I salvaged. I find the puzzle box next to my pack of cigarettes. "I kept this."

My Prince takes the box. "So that's where it got to! It's been a few centuries since I saw this kicking around." He grins down at me, all white teeth and charm that could rip my throat out. "Were you the one who opened it?"

Is that good or bad? "Yes."

"And put it back together again?"

"Yes?"

"Clever kid." The box vanishes from his fingertips. "So you did bring me a gift to make the trip worthwhile. Better."

My Prince is giving me tips on how to keep him happy. I can only conclude he finds me valuable enough to educate. What a strange concept. "I don't know what to do about the demon once he's out of Trauma--"

"Don't worry about it. Someone else gets the fun of swiping him from Abaddon." He gives the fire down the hill one last thoughtful glance, and then turns to look directly at me. I'd rather he keep watching the fire; it's more impressive, and less smelly. I desperately need a shower. "Congratulations, kid. You've saved the world, or some subset of it that I like using. Keep playing the angels for your own purposes, and you might end up in interesting places." I can't tell if he means promotions or trouble. Or both. Which is probably why he put it that way. "What do you want?"

He means something different from when Penny asks this. Right, something minor enough to not be rejected as greedy, but not so small as to offend. "Until Zhune gets out of Trauma--" I can't believe I'm asking a Prince for something. The last time I did that was when Belial gave me a new attunement, and I know how well that turned out. "The Shedite said I'd be working for it, and I'd rather not."

"Little Miss Inside Job is going to be too busy with the job I gave her to acquire any new minions for some time," Valefor says, and his sharp smile promises nastiness for...someone else. I can live with that. "Especially ones Bound to the corporeal. Try again."

He's in a good mood, as far as I can tell, and it's worth asking. "I could use another vessel. A less conspicuous one. I didn't have time to be subtle in putting together that fire, and while I can dodge the cops--"

I shut up when he waves off the explanation. It's not as if the Demon Prince of Theft needs a detailed account of why I might need to look like someone else, under the circumstances. "Done. See if you can keep the angels from identifying the new one." He stands up, and I wish I could stroll like that. It's not quite like the arrogance in the walk of a Balseraph or a Seraph, where they know they're just that much better than anyone else. More like he knows that he can take anyone who shows up, and do it with style. And take your wallet, your boyfriend, and your innocence in the process, because that's what he does. Valefor is clever in a completely different way than any Prince I've served before, and I'm an idiot not to have realized this earlier.

He walks like he expects me to follow, and so I do. I can feel the new vessel at the edge of my consciousness, waiting to be pulled into existence. I'm not going to try it out until I'm further away from the crime scene. "Zhune may be in Trauma for a while," he says conversationally. "Which leaves you at loose ends, doesn't it?"

"I suppose so." It occurs to me now that the Shedite might not have been the worst demon I could be serving. There are Habbalah of Theft, any of Zhune's psychotic friends, Calabim who express themselves through violence first. Getting stuck with supervisors who beat me up ends badly. Things explode with me inside, or I go Renegade.

"I could give you another babysitter." He chuckles, and even that manages to be...stylish. It's not fair that a Calabite should be able to carry himself so well. I could never manage it, and I assumed it was an inherent failing of our Band. Apparently it's just me. "But I don't think you need that anymore." He stops to face me, and I want to learn how to smile like that. I need a better vessel to pull it off. "Go take a vacation. This time, you've earned it. If your puppy takes too long to get out of Trauma, I'll find you a new one."

I'm not sure thanks are appropriate, for any number of reasons, so I only nod. And my Prince is gone, off to deal with more important business.

He tells me to go take a vacation, like he trusts me to come back on my own. After I've been kicked around between two Princes and run Renegade, had to be dragged into Theft in person, sold all manner of people out to the angels as it seemed appropriate. I can only assume he knows something about me that I don't.

And here I am, left to my own devices. To do whatever the hell I want.

Right now, I want a shower.

I'll figure the rest out later.


	12. An Epilogue, In Which I've Figured Some Things Out

"New vessel?"

I turn another page before looking over at Zhune. He's lurking in a highly Djinn manner among the library shelves, but even in the shadows, he looks like himself. Tall, dark, handsome: James Bond played by a different actor, but still the same character. "You hadn't heard?"

"I'd heard the overview. Not the details." He takes a seat across from me at the table. I know he had plenty of time before he spoke to look over the new vessel, but he still looks me up and down from there where I can see it. "Nothing exciting, I see."

"That was sort of the point." I'm not the sort of person that anyone looks at anymore, and I'm happy to leave it that way. I may have preferred the backup vessel to be taller, but male and inconspicuous are change enough to keep me happy. It's not as if I specified. "What took you so long?"

He leans across the table to see what I'm reading. The library's dead quiet, aside from the wheezing AC unit down the hall. You'd think people would take the end of summer as an opportunity to get some light reading in before classes start again, but you'd be too optimistic about humanity. "Had to swipe something."

I flip another page, even though I'm not quite finished with this one. "That took you a month?"

"From Abaddon." Perfectly bland, but I can tell he's smug about it. "Took a while."

"Some people get all the fun."

"I would have invited you along, but you would only have complained about how uncomfortable the trip back home was."

It's good to have him back, in a way I hadn't expected. But I'm not about to say that. "What, you're telling me that you don't mind Trauma?"

"No. Only that I don't bitch about it the way you do." Zhune flips a page back after I've turned it. "So what's that about?"

I swat his hand off the page. "Russian architecture from 1917 to 1932."

"What a thrill." Zhune checks his watch. "I was thinking of going to Chicago--"

"Where there's this old friend of yours, just as loony as the others?" And this is the part where I complain about his friends, he convinces me to come along, and we end up with another job that might or might not get us both killed. No one calls us in for the easy heists. "I'm not in the mood for a trip to Chicago."

"You can take the book, if you're that interested in it."

There are less than a dozen public libraries on this continent with copies of this particular book. I know, because I checked. "Don't you think that's a little beneath us, Zhune?" He only blinks, but it's still a reaction, and that means I'm doing this right. "I mean, stealing books from libraries. Elementary school kids do that. People do it by accident. This isn't even a reference-only book; they'll let people check it out and walk away, then pay a replacement fee if it never comes back. My most recent job was stealing a civilization-ending plague back from Death, and you think I should be swiping library books?"

I can nearly see the gears shifting in his head. "We take what we want," he says. "If you want it--"

"What I want, Zhune, is another twenty minutes to finish reading this book, because it took me a good long while to find it. And _then_ , we are not going to Chicago, because I'm not walking into another situation I don't know well enough to respond to appropriately." I break eye contact first, and I don't think he's fool enough to think that's a sign of weakness. "I don't like playing games where nobody's bothered to tell me the rules. If you're not willing to teach me how this works, I'll make my own set of rules and see how they play."

My partner stares at me for a long moment. Even without looking up, I can feel it. "If you don't want to go to Chicago, do you have a better idea?"

"Yes." I turn a page, and let him wait. "I'm in the mood for a museum job."

"What kind?"

"I don't know. Something complicated enough to be a challenge. Something with style to it. I've never done a museum job before, and it can't be like the way the movies show them. Maybe find one of those Chihuly pieces and see what it takes to get a piece of glass larger than I am out of the building without setting off any alarms." I meet his eyes again, and grin. "But not the permanent installation ones that take up entire ceilings or floors. I'm not in the mood for _that_ much of a challenge."

"Atlanta, then?"

"With their weather this time of year? I was thinking of London."

"London." He turns it over in his mind, and I'm waiting for him to catch up with me. Zhune's not dumb and he's not slow, but there's a Djinn's inertia to some of his thought patterns. "I know someone who can get us passports."

"I'd be disappointed if you didn't. You know everyone in Theft, or know someone who knows them, or know someone who will give you an introduction. What would I do without you?" This is my reminder to Zhune, because it took this long for me to figure it out: he needs me as much as I need him. I may be replaceable, one more partner in a long chain of all the partners he's had, but he needs an audience if he's going to get anything done. An audience, a sounding board, a partner who can tell him when he's being too obsessive and needs to back away.

"Nothing, I expect," Zhune says. Which is both snide and nearly the truth. He leans across the table, and shows off his Bond, James Bond smile. "What's it going to take to get you back into the other vessel?"

"Distance from places where it's wanted in connection with charges of arson and murder. A case of good beer. Sonnets."

"Sonnets?"

"Elizabethan sonnets. I'd prefer original ones, but I'll accept plagiarism if you can find decent ones that I don't recognize. We _are_ Theft, after all."

"Sonnets."

I've figured out a smile I like for this vessel. Not a dangerous one, not an adorable one, just a chipper little grin that suggests I'm up to no good. "Sonnets. I thought I'd try something different."

"You're being difficult, Leo."

"Aren't I always?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One concluding note on all of this. Those who have memorized the Valefor expanded writeup (as apparently I have not) will notice that in this story, the Demon of the Inside Job is a Shedite, whereas in _Superiors 4_ , the Demon of Inside Jobs is an Impudite. To this, I will simply note that:
> 
> 1) Stealing a Word from another demon is downright traditional within Theft;
> 
> 2) Who better to cozy up to an Impudite and betray her at the most unexpected moment than a Shedite?


End file.
